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Summary

Since the beginning of
anti-government protests in March 2011, Syrian security forces have killed more
than 4,000 protesters, injured many more, and arbitrarily arrested tens of
thousands across the country, subjecting many of them to torture in detention.
These abuses, extensively documented by Human Rights Watch based on statements
of hundreds of victims and witnesses, were committed as part of a widespread
and systematic attack against the civilian population and thus constitute
crimes against humanity.

This report focuses on the individual and command
responsibility of Syrian military commanders and intelligence officials for
these crimes. It is based on interviews with 63 defectors both from the army
and from the intelligence agencies, generally known as the mukhabarat. These
defectors shared with Human Rights Watch detailed information about their
units’ participation in violations and the orders they received from
commanders at different levels. The defectors provided information on
violations that occurred in seven of Syria’s fourteen governorates:
Damascus, Daraa, Homs, Idlib, Tartous, Deir al-Zor, and Hama.

Human Rights Watch interviewed all of the defectors
separately and at length. Violations described in this report are those that
were described separately by several defectors and with sufficient detail to
convince the researcher that the interviewees had first-hand knowledge of the
incidents in question. Several accounts have been excluded because interviewees
did not provide such detail.

The statements of soldiers and officers who defected from
the Syrian military and intelligence agencies leave no doubt that the abuses
were committed in pursuance of state policy and that they were directly
ordered, authorized, or condoned at the highest levels of Syrian military and
civilian leadership.

Human Rights Watch’s findings show that military
commanders and officials in the intelligence agencies gave both direct and
standing orders to use lethal force against the protesters (at least 20 such cases
are documented in detail in this report) as well as to unlawfully arrest, beat,
and torture the detainees. In addition, senior military commanders and
high-ranking officials, including President Bashar al-Assad and the heads of the
intelligence agencies, bear command responsibility for violations committed by
their subordinates to the extent that they knew or should have known of the
abuses but failed to take action to stop them.

Syrian authorities
repeatedly claimed that the violence in the country has been perpetrated by armed
terrorist gangs, incited and sponsored from abroad. Human Rights Watch has
documented several incidents in which demonstrators and armed neighborhood
groups have resorted to violence. Since September, armed attacks on security
forces have significantly increased, with the Free Syrian Army, a self-declared
opposition armed group with some senior members in Turkey, taking
responsibility for many of them. Syrian authorities have claimed that more than
1,100 members of the security forces have been killed since the beginning of
the anti-government protests in mid-March.

However, despite the increased number of attacks by
defectors and neighborhood defense groups, witness statements and corroborating
information indicate that the majority of protests that Human Rights Watch has
been able to document since the uprising began in March have been largely
peaceful. The information provided for this report by defectors, who were
deployed to suppress the protests, supports that assessment and underlines the
lengths to which the authorities have gone to misrepresent the protesters as
“armed gangs” and “terrorists.” But there is a risk—as
seen in hard hit places like the city of Homs—that bigger segments of the
protest movement will arm themselves in response to attacks by security forces
or pro-government militias, known as shabeeha.

Considering the evidence that crimes against humanity have
been committed in Syria, the pervasive climate of impunity for security forces
and pro-government militias, and the grave nature of many of their abuses,
Human Rights Watch believes that the United Nations Security Council should
refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Crimes
against humanity are considered crimes triggering universal jurisdiction under
international customary law (meaning that national courts of third states could
investigate and prosecute them even if they were committed abroad, by
foreigners and against foreigners). All states are responsible for bringing to
justice those who have committed crimes against humanity.

Killings of Protesters and
Bystanders

All of the 63 defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch
said that their commanders gave them standing orders to stop the protests “by
all means necessary” during regular briefings and prior to deployment.
The defectors said that, even when it was not specified, they universally
understood the phrase “by all means necessary” as an authorization
to use lethal force, especially given the provision of live ammunition as
opposed to other means of crowd control. For example:

“Abdullah,” a soldier with the 409th
Battalion, 154th Regiment, 4th Division, said that two
high-level commanders, Brigadier General Jawdat Ibrahim Safi and Major
General Mohamed Ali Durgham, ordered the troops to shoot at protesters when
his unit was deployed to areas in and just outside of Damascus.

“Mansour,” who served in Air Force Intelligence in
Daraa, said that the commander in charge of Air Force Intelligence in Daraa, Colonel
Qusay Mihoub, gave his unit orders to “stop the protesters by all
possible means,” which included the use of lethal force.

About half of the defectors interviewed by Human Rights
Watch said that the commanders of their units or other officers gave direct
orders to open fire at protesters or bystanders, and, in some cases,
participated in the killings themselves. According to the defectors, the protesters
were not armed and did not present a significant threat to the security forces
at the time. For example:

“Hani,” who served in the Special Operations branch
of Air Force Intelligence, said that Colonel Suheil Hassan gave orders
to shoot directly at protesters on April 15 during a protest in the Mo`adamiyeh
neighborhood in Damascus.

“Amjad,” who was deployed to Daraa with the 35th
Special Forces Regiment, said that he received direct verbal orders from the
commander of his unit, Brigadier General Ramadan Mahmoud Ramadan, to
open fire at the protesters on April 25.

Human Rights Watch collected extensive information about the
participation of specific military units and intelligence agencies in attacks
against the protesters in different cities and large-scale military operations
that resulted in killings, mass arrests, torture, and other violations. The
appendix to this report contains information on the structure of the units,
locations where they were deployed, violations in which they were allegedly
involved, and, wherever this information was available, the names of their
commanders or officials in charge.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented and publicized widespread
killings of protesters across the country, based on the statements of hundreds
of protesters, victims of abuses, and witnesses. Evidence collected from
defectors for this report corroborates some of these previously documented incidents.
Several defectors who participated in the April 25 military operation in Daraa,
for example, confirmed killings documented by Human Rights Watch in the June
2011 report, “We’ve Never Seen Such Horror.”

The exact number of those killed is difficult to verify
given the government-imposed restrictions on independent reporting inside Syria,
but the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has put the figure at
more than 4,000 as of December 2, 2011, while the Violations Documentation
Center (VDC), a monitoring group working in coordination with the Local
Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of Syrian activists, has compiled a
list of 3,934 civilian deaths as of December 3, 2011. The Syrian government has
stated that more than 1,100 members of the security forces have been killed.

Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and
Executions

According to information collected by Human Rights Watch,
the Syrian security forces have conducted a massive campaign of arbitrary
arrests and torture of detainees across Syria since the beginning of
anti-government protests in March 2011. Information provided by the defectors,
many of whom personally participated in arrests and ill-treatment, further
corroborates these findings.

The defectors described large-scale, arbitrary arrests
during protests and at checkpoints, as well as “sweep” operations
in residential neighborhoods across the country. Most of the arrests appear to
have been conducted by the intelligence agencies, while the military provided
support during the arrest and transportation of detainees.

The number of people arrested since the beginning of the
protests is impossible to verify. As of December 3, 2011, the VDC had
documented almost 15,500 arrests. The real number is likely much higher.

Information from the defectors about sweep operations in
which they participated lends support to allegations of a massive campaign of
arbitrary arrests. Multiple examples cited in the report show that the security
services routinely arrested hundreds, if not thousands, of detainees, including
many children, following the protests and after they took control of different
towns. For example:

“Said,” who was deployed to Talbiseh with the 134th
Brigade, 18th Division, said that after the military moved into the
town in early May, intelligence agencies and the military started conducting
daily raids, arresting “anyone older than 14 years—sometimes 20,
and sometimes a hundred people.” Said also said that the arrest raids,
authorized by the mukhabarat and the military, were accompanied by
“brazen looting” and burning of shops.

“Ghassan,” a lieutenant colonel deployed in Douma
with the 106th Brigade, Presidential Guard, said that his brigade,
on average, arrested about 50 people, any male between ages 15 and 50, at his
checkpoint after each Friday protest.

According to the defectors, arrests were routinely
accompanied by beatings and other ill-treatment, which commanders ordered, authorized,
or condoned. Those who worked in or had access to detention facilities told
Human Rights Watch that they witnessed or participated in the torture of
detainees.

The defectors from both the military and the intelligence
agencies who were involved in the arrest operations said that they beat
detainees during their arrest and transportation to the detention facilities
almost without exception. They cited specific orders they received from their
commanders in this respect.

While most of the defectors interviewed said they were only
involved in transporting the detainees to various detention facilities, a few,
mainly those who served in intelligence agencies, said they had first-hand
knowledge of the situation inside the facilities. Their statements confirm the
widespread use of torture in detention previously documented by Human Rights
Watch and provide additional details on the intelligence officials in charge.

One of the most
worrisome features of the intensifying crackdown on protesters in Syria has
been the growing number of custodial deaths since the beginning of July. Local
activists have reported more than 197 such deaths as of November 15, 2011. Two
defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch shared information about the
summary execution of detainees or deaths from torture in detention in two areas:
Douma, and Bukamal. A lieutenant colonel who served in the Presidential Guard
said that he witnessed a summary execution of a detainee at a checkpoint in
Douma around August 7, 2011. A defector who had been posted in the eastern town
of Bukamal, by the Iraqi border, said that he saw 17 bodies of anti-government
activists including a number that had surrendered to an intelligence agency several
days earlier.

Denial of Medical Assistance

Defectors also provided further information about the denial
of medical assistance to wounded protesters, the use of ambulances to arrest
the injured, and the mistreatment of injured individuals in hospitals
controlled by intelligence agencies and the military, a disturbing pattern that
Human Rights Watch and other organizations have previously documented.

Several examples cited by the defectors strongly suggest
that these violations were ordered, authorized, or condoned by commanders
rather than committed at the initiative of individual members of the armed
forces or intelligence agencies. According to the defectors, security forces
brought some of the wounded protesters directly to the detention facilities
where they mistreated them.

They said that injured protesters who were brought to the
military, or military-controlled, hospitals were also subjected to mistreatment
and beatings by intelligence agents and hospital staff. Those whose wounds were
serious and did not allow for immediate transportation were held in temporary
detention facilities on hospital premises before being transferred to other
places of detention.

Command Responsibility of High-Ranking
Officers and Government Officials

Given the widespread nature of killings and other crimes
committed in Syria, scores of statements from defectors about their orders to
shoot and abuse protesters, and the extensive publication of these abuses by
the media and international organizations, it is reasonable to conclude that the
senior military and civilian leadership knew or should have known about them. The
Syrian military and civilian leadership also clearly have failed to take any
meaningful action to investigate and stop these abuses. Under international
law, they would thus be responsible for violations committed by their
subordinates.

With regards to President Bashar al-Assad, who is the commander-in-chief
of the Syrian armed forces, and his close associates, including the heads of intelligence
agencies and the military leadership, Human Rights Watch has collected
additional information that strongly indicates their direct knowledge and
involvement in the violent crackdown on protesters.

Human Rights Watch believes that, in addition to military
and intelligence officers mentioned in connection with specific incidents in
this report, these commanders, including the highest-ranking officers and heads
of intelligence agencies, should be investigated on the grounds of their
command responsibility for violations committed by units under their control. Under
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, criminal liability applies
to both those who physically commit the crimes and to senior officials,
including those who give the orders and those in a position of command who
should have been aware of the abuses but failed to prevent them or to report or
prosecute those responsible.

Repercussions for Disobeying
Illegal Orders

The consequences for disobeying orders and challenging
government claims about the protests have been severe. Eight defectors told
Human Rights Watch that they witnessed officers or intelligence agents killing military
personnel who refused to follow orders. Three defectors told Human Rights Watch
that the authorities had detained them because they refused to follow orders or
challenged government claims. At least two said that security forces beat and
tortured them. Other defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that
security forces detained and tortured them for participating in protests during
leave or before they started their military service.

The defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that
security forces detained them for relatively short terms in detention centers
on their base or in nearby detention facilities. According to witnesses other
defectors were sent to the notorious Tadmor military prison in Homs
governorate.

A prison guard from
Tadmor told Human Rights Watch that by the time he defected in August the
prison housed about 2,500 prisoners. While the prisoners initially included
only military personnel, the prison started receiving a growing number of
detained protesters and defectors after protests erupted in March. He told
Human Rights Watch that security forces there beat and tortured all prisoners, but
gave defectors particularly harsh treatment.

One defector said that security forces arrested a close relative
to force him to return to his unit.

Virtually all defectors
interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that they were convinced that officers
or intelligence agents would kill them if they refused to follow orders. In
standard operations to suppress protests, they said that conscript soldiers
from the army or intelligence agencies lined up in front, while officers and intelligence
agents stayed behind, giving orders and making sure that they followed orders.
On several occasions, officers and intelligence agents explicitly threatened to
kill soldiers if they did not follow orders.

Most of the defectors said that they tried to evade orders
by aiming at protesters’ feet, or firing in the air, but in some cases
felt that they had to shoot at the protesters or commit other abuses because
they thought that they would themselves be killed otherwise. A few took up arms
against intelligence agents and officers who ordered the killings, and many
said they defected when they realized that their commanders were ordering them
to shoot at unarmed protesters as opposed to the “armed gangs” that
they had been told to expect.

Recommendations

The Syrian government’s response to credible
accusations of human rights violations has been inadequate and has fostered a
climate of impunity, including for unlawful killings, torture, enforced
disappearance, and arbitrary detention. Human Rights Watch is not aware of any
public information about specific investigations or prosecutions related to
violations described in this report.

While many states have condemned Syria’s use of
violence and some have followed those words with actions aimed at pushing the Syrian
government to change course, the international community has been slow to take
collective action.

Considering the evidence that crimes against humanity have
been committed in Syria, the pervasive climate of impunity for security forces
and pro-government militias, and the grave nature of many of their abuses, Human
Rights Watch calls on the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation
in Syria to the International Criminal Court—the forum most capable of
effectively investigating and prosecuting those bearing the greatest
responsibility for the crimes committed and offering accountability to the
Syrian people. The Security Council should also require states to suspend all
military sales and assistance to the Syrian government and adopt targeted
sanctions on officials credibly implicated in the ongoing grave, widespread,
and systematic violations of international human rights law. Human Rights Watch
also calls on all states, in accordance with their national laws, to bring to
justice under the principle of universal jurisdiction those who have committed crimes
against humanity.

Methodology

This report is based on 63 interviews with defectors from
Syria’s armed forces and intelligence agencies. Human Rights Watch
researchers conducted these interviews in person in Syria’s neighboring
countries from May to November 2011. Researchers also interviewed dozens of
witnesses in Syria and in neighboring countries to establish the context of the
anti-government demonstrations in Syria and corroborate defectors’ statements.

Human Rights Watch researchers conducted the interviews in
Arabic or with the help of Arabic-English translators.

The defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch served in
regular army units, the Special Forces, the Military Police, the Presidential
Guard, the General Intelligence Directorate, the Air Force Intelligence
Directorate, and in other units. While the majority were conscript soldiers, 14
defectors said they had served as officers, the highest-ranking being a
lieutenant colonel. Their units were deployed to suppress protests all over
Syria, including in the governorates of Damascus, Daraa, Homs, Hama, Idlib,
Tartous, and Deir al-Zor.

Syria has been and remains under an information blockade,
and obtaining information about the government crackdown on protesters is
extremely difficult. Those who speak to investigators or share information
through electronic means face severe repercussions. To protect defectors, other
witnesses, and their families, Human Rights Watch has changed their names and
withheld information about the location of the interviews. In the report,
pseudonyms are indicated with quotation marks.

Human Rights Watch interviewed all of the defectors and
other witnesses separately and at length. Violations described in this report
are those that several defectors described separately and with sufficient
detail to convince the researcher that the interviewees had first-hand
knowledge of the incidents in question. Several accounts have been excluded
because interviewees did not provide such detail.

The majority of incidents described in this report mention
the names and ranks of commanders who allegedly gave orders to commit the
abuses. In some cases, it was possible to corroborate these allegations through
independent interviews with two or more witnesses. In other cases the report
gives the name and rank of a commander based on the statement of one defector,
but only if Human Rights Watch researchers deemed this was justified by the
level of detail and the credibility of the overall evidence provided. While a
single person’s statement cannot be the basis of a definitive conclusion
about the responsibility of the commanders in question, Human Rights Watch
believes that such allegations require a prompt investigation.

I. Background

Protests in Syria

Protests in Syria broke out on March 18 in response to the
arrest and torture of 15 school children by the Political Security Directorate,
one of Syria’s intelligence agencies, in the southern city of Daraa.
Attempting to suppress the demonstrations, security forces opened fire on the protesters,
killing at least four. Within days the protests grew into rallies that gathered
thousands of people.[1]
Protests quickly spread to the rest of the country in a show of sympathy with
the Daraa protesters. The government’s violent response only further
fueled demonstrations.

At the time of writing, protests are still taking place
regularly in the governorates of Daraa, al-Hasaka, Idlib, Deir al-Zor, Homs,
Hama, and in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus.

Syrian security forces, primarily the intelligence agencies,
referred to generically as mukhabarat, and government-supported militias,
referred to locally as shabeeha, regularly used force, often lethal,
against largely peaceful demonstrators, and often prevented injured protesters
from receiving medical assistance.[2]
As the protest movement endured, the government also deployed the army, usually
in full military gear and backed by armored personnel vehicles, to quell
protests.

While consistent witness statements leave little doubt
regarding the widespread and systematic nature of abuses, the exact number of
people killed and injured by Syrian security forces is impossible to verify. At
the time of writing, Syria remains off-limits to international journalists and
human rights groups, and communications are often interrupted in affected
areas. However, an expanding network of activists grouping themselves in local
coordination committees (LCC) and making extensive use of the Internet,
including social media, and reporting the information to a monitoring group,
the Violations Documentation Center (VDC), have compiled a list of 3,934
civilians killed, including more than 300 children, as of December 3, 2011.[3]

Syrian authorities went to great lengths to convince the
public, both Syrian and international, as well as the members of security
forces deployed to quell the protests, that “criminals” and “armed
terrorist gangs,” incited and sponsored from abroad, have been
responsible for most of the violence.

On October 7, Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal
Mekdad, told the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) that his country was
“grappling with terrorist threats” and promised to give the UN a
list of “more than 1,100 people who have been killed by the
terrorists,” including civil servants and police.[4] In an
interview with the British Sunday Times newspaper published on November
20, 2011, President al-Assad blamed “armed gangs” for the killing
of 800 members of his security forces.[5]

As this report illustrates, however, in at least some cases
members of the security forces fell victim to friendly fire or deliberate
killings for their refusal to follow the orders. Defectors interviewed for this
report also said that in many instances the dead and injured whom the
authorities claimed through the state media had been killed or wounded by
"armed gangs" and "terrorists" were actually the victims of
the government's repression.

Human Rights Watch has documented several incidents in which
demonstrators, at times supported by military defectors, have resorted to
violence.[6]
For example, demonstrators set government buildings on fire in the towns of
Daraa, Jisr al-Shughur, and Tal Kalakh, destroyed monuments to President Bashar
al-Assad and his father Hafez al-Assad, and torched several vehicles belonging
to the security forces.[7]
Witnesses described some of these episodes to Human Rights Watch; we also
viewed evidence of such attacks on amateur videos available online. Several
witnesses also told Human Rights Watch that protesters had killed members of
security forces, usually after the security forces had opened fire on them.

At the same time, statements from witnesses, including
defectors, protesters, and journalists, indicate that the protesters have been unarmed
in the majority of cases documented by Human Rights Watch and other human
rights organizations.

Since September, armed attacks on security forces have
increased, with the Free Syrian Army, a self-declared opposition armed group
with some senior members in Turkey, taking responsibility for many of them,
although some commentators, diplomats, and even opposition members have
questioned its level of control and organization.[8] On
November 28, 2011, during a meeting in Turkey, the Free Syrian Army agreed with
the Syrian National
Council (SNC),an umbrella group of Syrian opposition, that the Free
Syrian Army will “not organize any assault” against Syrian government
forces anymore, and will resort to “armed resistance” only “for protecting civilians
during protests.”[9]

At the same time, several defectors and other witnesses
expressed concern that the government’s continued brutal crackdown had
increased sectarian tensions and violence. For example, both Sunni and Alawite
residents of the central governorate of Homs, a predominantly Sunni area with a
large Alawite minority, already report an increase in kidnappings by unknown
gunmen and talk about their fear of driving through some neighborhoods in their
cities. Journalists have reported on a number of killings that seem motivated
by sectarian retribution.[10]
The threat of an increase in sectarian violence has led United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights Navi Pillay to warn during an emergency session on Syria at the
UN Human Rights Council on December 2, 2011 that “[t]he Syrian
authorities’ continual ruthless repression, if not stopped now, can drive
the country into a full-fledged civil war.”[11]

In addition to shooting at protesters, security forces
launched a massive campaign of arrests, arbitrarily detaining hundreds of
protesters across the country, routinely failing to acknowledge their detention
or provide information on their whereabouts, and subjecting them to torture and
ill-treatment. The intelligence agencies have also arrested lawyers, activists,
and journalists who endorsed or promoted the protests, as well as medical
personnel suspected of caring for wounded protesters in makeshift field
hospitals or private homes.[12]

Human Rights Watch documented large-scale arbitrary
detentions, including the detention of children, in Daraa, Damascus and its
suburbs, Banyas and surrounding villages, Latakia, Deir al-Zor, Tal Kalakh,
Hama, Homs, Zabadani, Jisr al-Shughur, and Maaret al-Nu`man.[13] Many
of the arrests appeared entirely arbitrary, with no formal charges brought
against the detainees. It appears that most detainees were released several
days or weeks later, but others have not reappeared. Many of those cases
constitute enforced disappearances, as their families have had no information
on their fate or whereabouts for a prolonged period of time.[14]

Released detainees, some of them children, said that they,
as well as hundreds of others they saw in detention, were subjected to torture
and ill-treatment. All of the former detainees interviewed by Human Rights
Watch described appalling detention conditions, with grossly overcrowded cells,
where at times detainees could only sleep in turns, and lack of food.[15]

In several cities, including Daraa, Tal Kalakh, Rastan,
Banyas, Deir al-Zor, Hama, and parts of Homs, Syrian security forces moved into
neighborhoods in military vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel
carriers, under the cover of heavy gunfire. They imposed checkpoints, placed
snipers on roofs of buildings, and restricted movement of residents in the
streets. In some places, like Daraa, the security forces imposed a full-out
siege that lasted for several weeks, cutting off all means of communication and
subjecting residents to acute shortages of food, water, medicine, and other
essential supplies.[16]

Deployment of Syria’s
Security Forces

In March 2011 the Syrian government began deploying security
forces from the armed forces, the intelligence agencies, and the shabeeha
to quell the protests. First in Daraa, and later, as this report illustrates,
in Damascus, Deir al-Zor, Idlib, Hama, Homs, Latakia, and Tartous governorates,
the armed forces and intelligence agencies, often working in concert, conducted
operations to stamp out the protests.

There are four main intelligence agencies in Syria:

The Department of Military Intelligence (Shu'bat al-Mukhabarat
al-'Askariyya), which includes the Palestine Branch;

The Political Security Directorate (Idarat al-Amn al-Siyasi);

The General Intelligence Directorate (Idarat al-Mukhabarat
al-'Amma), which is generally referred to by its previous name, State
Security (Amn al-Dawla); and

Intelligence agencies overlap extensively, and there are no
clear rules for which agency will take the lead in a particular action. These
agencies have virtually unlimited de facto authority to carry out
arrests, searches, interrogation, and detention. They are more than a simple
arm of the government; they are in practice autonomous entities that report
directly to the highest officials in the Syrian state, and according to some
analysts, directly to the President.[18]

Units from the armed forces deployed to quell the protests
include the Presidential Guard, the 3rd, 4th, 5th,
9th, 11th, 15th, and 18th Divisions,
and various Special Forces Regiments, including the 35th, 45th,
and 46th Regiments. Service in the armed forces is compulsory for
adult males[19]
and the majority of army defectors are low-level conscripts.[20]

More detailed information regarding the specific military
units and intelligence agencies involved in the attacks against protesters in
different cities and large-scale military operations is provided in the
appendix to this report. This includes information on the structure of the
units, locations where they were deployed, violations in which they were
allegedly involved, and, where this information is available, the names of their
commanders or the officials in charge.

Defections from Armed Forces and
Security Agencies

The rate of defections from the Syrian armed forces and intelligence
agencies appears to have steadily increased since the authorities deployed their
security forces to suppress anti-government protests in March 2011. Estimates
of the number of defectors vary significantly. Riad al-Asaad, the head of the
Free Syrian Army, a self-declared armed opposition group, told Reuters that his
group consisted of 15,000 defectors by mid-October; but many others believe
that those numbers are exaggerated.[21]
An opposition member told Human Rights Watch in November that he estimated that
there were a “few thousand—in the single digits—defectors in
the Free Syrian Army.”[22]

The majority of the defectors told Human Rights Watch that
they decided to defect when they discovered that the authorities and their
officers had deliberately misled them about the nature of the protests.
According to the defectors, when the protests erupted in mid-March, the
authorities immediately restricted soldiers’ access to information and
launched a propaganda campaign to convince the soldiers that they were fighting
“armed gangs” and “terrorists” supported by an
international conspiracy to destroy Syria. A conscript serving in the Military
Police in Deir al-Zor told Human Rights Watch: “Protests in Daraa started
on March 18. The very next day they confiscated our cell phones and barred us
from watching anything but Syrian state TV and the pro-government Dunya TV. On
the news, they started telling us about terrorists.”[23]

A conscript soldier based in Rankous, a suburb of Damascus,
gave a similar account to Human Rights Watch:

Soldiers in the unit were under close surveillance; we
couldn’t really talk to each other. As for cell phones, they were never
allowed, but this rule was never enforced. But starting in April, commanders
started breaking the cell phones whenever they caught somebody using them. All
TV channels were banned, aside from official Syrian TV.

Every morning commanders conducted a meeting, talking about
how good Assad and his family were, and about the threats from the terrorists.
And then they also forbade us from taking leave. It used to be eight days every
two months, but after April nobody was allowed to go.[24]

A member of the 45th Special Forces Regiment,
deployed in the coastal areas of Banyas and Markeb, told Human Rights Watch:

We were told that there are terrorist groups coming into
the country with funding from Bandar Bin Sultan [a prominent Saudi prince who
served until 2009 as Saudi's national security chief], Saad al-Hariri [a former
Lebanese prime minister], and Jeffrey Feltman [US Assistant Secretary of State
for Near Eastern affairs].[25]

Military commanders often communicated this information to
soldiers during daily briefings, referred to as nasharat tawjeeh. A
lieutenant in the 14th Division posted in Damascus described the
briefing: "Each morning we had guidance briefings. They would tell us
there are gangs and infiltrators. They would show us pictures of dead soldiers
and security forces."[26]
One defector, who had served in the army for 25 years, most recently as a
communications officer responsible for his unit’s informational radio
programs, told Human Rights Watch:

Usually, I wrote the news segments myself and
higher-ranking officers only made minor edits to what I wrote, but when I
wanted to report on the protests in March, the commanders gave me a prepared
statement instead of looking at what I had written. The statement said that
terrorist gangs were attacking civilians. Some of my relatives had been
participating in the protests, so I knew better. I refused to read it on air,
saying that I was not feeling well, but somebody else read it instead.[27]

Defectors from units serving in a number of governorates all
over Syria described similar measures taken to prevent them from finding out
what was happening, indicating a high-level policy to restrict soldiers’
access to information.

Isolated from any independent sources of information, defectors
say they and many of their fellow soldiers initially believed the government statements.
A 20-year-old conscript who was stationed on the border with Israel told Human
Rights Watch:

When the events started in Daraa, the officers took all our
TVs, radios, and phones. The only news we got was through internal radio, and
it was all about hooligans, foreign elements, etc. Most of us believed it, and
we were scared; even the movement of birds and butterflies would set off shooting.[28]

For many of the defectors, the turning point came when they
were finally allowed to go home on leave. The realization that close relatives
and friends were participating in the protests and had been attacked by the
security forces convinced many that the government’s claims were false.
Some even participated in protests themselves while on leave. A few of the
defectors said that it was the killing or arrests of family members and friends
during protests that convinced them to defect.

Others said they decided to defect after officers ordered
them to shoot at peaceful protesters or after they witnessed or participated in
the killing of large numbers of protesters. For example, one soldier in the 65th
Brigade, 3rd Division, who was sent to Douma to suppress protests in
April, told Human Rights Watch:

At one point we killed eight people in 15 minutes. The protesters
were unarmed. They didn’t even have rocks! That’s when I decided to
defect. I threw away my gun and ran towards the protesters. Somebody picked me
up in a van and took me home to Daraa.[29]

Defectors also said that they became disillusioned by
officers planting weapons in mosques, frequent friendly fire incidents between intelligence
agents and army soldiers, and claims, intended to mislead, that “armed protesters”
and “terrorists” had killed soldiers who had actually been killed
by intelligence agents, friendly fire, or accidents.

II. Individual and Command
Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity

Since the beginning of anti-government protests in March
2011, Syrian security forces have killed more than 4,000 protesters and
bystanders in their violent efforts to stop the protests, according to UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.[30] They have injured many
more and arbitrarily arrested tens of thousands across the country, subjecting
many of them to torture and ill-treatment in detention. Local activists have
reported more than 197 deaths in custody.[31] Human
Rights Watch has collected and publicized extensive documentation on these
violations committed in governorates of Daraa, Homs, Damascus, Hama, and other
places across the country.[32]

Human Rights Watch believes that these abuses were committed
as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population and
thus constitute crimes against humanity under customary international law and
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.[33] The independent,
international commission of inquiry on Syria appointed by the UN Human Rights
Council and set up by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR) has reached the same conclusion.[34]

The Rome Statute defines an “attack directed against
any civilian population” as “a course of conduct involving the
multiple commission of acts [which qualify as crimes against humanity such as
murder] against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a
State or organizational policy to commit such attack.”[35]

The statements of soldiers and officers who defected from
the Syrian military and security forces leave no doubt that the widespread and
systematic abuses, including killings, arbitrary detentions, and torture, were
committed in pursuance of a state policy targeting civilians or against the
civilian population and that they were directly ordered, authorized, or
condoned at the highest levels of Syrian military and civilian leadership.

For individuals to be found culpable of crimes against
humanity under the Rome Statute, they must have had knowledge of the crime.[36]
That is, perpetrators must have been aware that their actions formed part of
the widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population.[37] While
perpetrators need not be identified with a policy or plan underlying the crimes
against humanity, they must at least have knowingly taken the risk of
participating in the policy or plan.[38]

Human Rights Watch’s findings, presented in detail
below, show that military commanders and officials in the intelligence agencies
gave both direct and standing orders to use lethal force against protesters, as
well as to unlawfully arrest, beat, and torture detainees. On many occasions,
they were not only present during the commission of the crimes, but personally
participated in the violations. In several cases documented by Human Rights
Watch, the commanders oversaw the cover-up operations, such as the disposal of
dead bodies following the killings.

Individuals implicated in such acts bear individual criminal
responsibility for crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute.[39]

Military commanders and intelligence officials could also
bear responsibility for violations committed by units under their command in
accordance with the doctrine of command responsibility under the Rome Statute,
even if they did not directly participate in or give orders to commit the
violations.[40]

The Rome Statute stipulates that military commanders bear
responsibility for crimes committed by forces under their “effective command
and control, or effective authority and control” when they knew or should
have known about the crimes and failed to prevent them or to submit the matter
for prosecution.[41]
The same principle applies to civilian officials for crimes committed by their
subordinates that concerned “activities that were within the effective
responsibility and control of the superior” when they “knew, or
consciously disregarded information which clearly indicated, that the
subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes” and
“failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his or her
power to prevent or repress their commission or to submit the matter to the
competent authorities for investigation and prosecution.”[42] A
head of state and members of government are not exempt from responsibility.[43]

Several examples indicate that President Bashar al-Assad, who
is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian armed forces, the heads of intelligence
agencies, and other high-ranking officials mentioned in this report have
ordered, authorized, or condoned the violent crackdown on protesters. It is
also reasonable to assume that they knew about the extent and nature of the
repression through official channels.[44]
In addition, information about violations committed by the military and
security forces since the beginning of protests in Syria has been publicized by
several international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, the media,
and Syrian activists. Multiple international bodies have raised concerns about
these violations as well. The independent commission of inquiry appointed by
the Human Rights Council extensively documented the violations and presented
its report to the HRC, and the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution
condemning the abuses. In these circumstances, the failure to stop the
violations and bring their perpetrators to justice also makes these officials
criminally responsible under the doctrine of command responsibility.

The Rome Statute stipulates that, subject to some exceptions,
individuals accused of crimes against humanity cannot avail themselves of the
defense of following superior orders.[45] One
such exception is if an individual acts under a threat of “imminent death
or of continuing or imminent serious bodily harm,” made explicitly or
“constituted by other circumstances beyond that person’s
control,” if “the person does not intend to cause a greater harm
than the one sought to be avoided.”[46] As this report
illustrates, many rank-and-file soldiers in the Syrian armed forces and intelligence
agencies appear to have acted when faced with the choice of committing the
crimes or being killed for disobeying the orders, and, in many cases, they seem
to have tried to prevent the worst consequences of their actions—for
example, by firing in the air, or aiming at the protesters’ feet to avoid
killing them.

Another exception may apply to individuals—both
soldiers and commanders—who acted in self-defense, or in defense of
others “against an imminent and unlawful use of force in a manner
proportionate to the degree of danger.”[47]

As mentioned above, Human Rights Watch has documented a
number of instances where the protesters resorted to violence, yet these
incidents of violence by protesters remained exceptional compared to the number
of attacks on protesters we documented.

We also asked every military defector interviewed for this
report about the use of violence by the protesters, and all but one of them
said that they never felt under threat when dealing with protests. Some
mentioned that the protesters threw stones at the security forces, one defector
mentioned being involved in a shoot-out with armed protesters in Bukamal in the
Deir al-Zor governorate, and one defector mentioned that he was aware of a
group of protesters in a town in Daraa governorate that was armed, but had not
seen it in action.

Incidents where protesters have allegedly resorted to violence
should be further investigated and in some cases may provide a valid defense
against accusations of involvement in crimes against humanity where individuals
responded in a manner that was proportionate to the degree of danger. The defectors’
statements, however, support the conclusion that in many cases, the force used
against the protesters was clearly disproportionate to the threat presented by
the overwhelmingly unarmed crowds.

Considering the evidence that crimes against humanity have
been committed in Syria, the pervasive climate of impunity for security forces
and pro-government militias, and the grave nature of many of their abuses,
Human Rights Watch calls on the UN Security Council to refer the situation in
Syria to the ICC. Human Rights Watch believes that the ICC is the forum most
capable of effectively investigating and prosecuting those bearing the greatest
responsibility for serious crimes committed in Syria. Human Rights Watch also
recalls that crimes against humanity are considered crimes that trigger
universal jurisdiction under international customary law, and thus all states should
bring to justice those who have committed them.[48]

Killings of Protesters and
Bystanders

The Violations Documentation Center, in cooperation with Local
Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of Syrian activists documenting and
publicizing violations inside Syria, has collected the names of 3,934 people
killed by the security forces between the beginning of anti-government protests
in March and December 3, 2011.[49]
In her statement on December 2, 2011, United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights Navi Pillay said that more 4,000 people, over 300 of them
children, had been killed.[50]
Human Rights Watch has documented and publicized many of these killings.[51]

Defectors’ statements provide further information
about the systematic nature of the killings authorized by commanders of the
armed forces and intelligence agencies at the highest levels.

All of the military defectors interviewed by Human Rights
Watch said that their commanders gave standing orders to “stop the
protests at any cost” during regular briefings to the troops and prior to
deployment. In many cases, the commanders explicitly authorized the use of
lethal force against largely peaceful protesters.

In about half of the cases, interviewees said that
commanders followed these standing orders with specific orders during the
operations against protesters to “open fire,” “shoot,”
“kill,” “destroy,” and the like.

Human Rights Watch also obtained information about
commanders’ involvement in the planning and implementation of specific
operations that resulted in a large number of civilian casualties. Further, on
several occasions documented by Human Rights Watch, commanders gave orders or
participated in the transfer—or burial—of the bodies of protesters killed
in attacks during demonstrations.

Standing orders

All of the 63 defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch
said that they received standing orders to suppress, stop, or disperse the
protests “by all means necessary” prior to deployment.

These orders were communicated during regular morning
meetings or immediately before deployment to specific areas either directly by
high-ranking commanders, or by lower-level commanders referring to orders received
from high-ranking commanders. The defectors said that even when it was not
specified, they universally understood the phrase “by all means
necessary” as an authorization to use lethal force, especially in the
light of the fact that they were issued live ammunition as opposed to other
means of crowd control.

Examples of such orders documented by Human Rights Watch
include:

·“Ahmed,” a soldier with the Presidential Guard, who
was deployed to Douma in April, said that Brigadier General Talal Makhlouf,
commander of the 105th Brigade, Presidential Guard, gave his unit verbal
orders to “suppress the protest and shoot if people refuse to
disperse.”[52]

·“Jamal,” another
soldier from the 105th Brigade also said that Brigadier General
Talal Makhlouf gave the troops verbal orders to “shoot at protesters.”
He recounted to Human Rights Watch specific operations when these orders were
implemented. He said:

On August 27 we were near a police hospital in Harasta.
About 1,500 protesters came there. They requested the release of an injured
protester who was inside the hospital. They held olive branches. They had no
arms. There were 35 army soldiers and about 50 mukhabarat personnel at
the checkpoint. We also had a jeep with a mounted machine-gun. When the protesters
were less than 100 meters away, we opened fire. We had previously received the
orders to do so from the Brigadier General. Five protesters were hit, and I
believe two of them died.[53]

·“Abdullah,” a soldier with the 409th
Battalion, 154th Regiment, 4th Division, said that his
unit was deployed to Mo`adamiyeh, Douma, Abbassiyyin, and Dummar, areas in and
just outside of Damascus. He said that two high-level commanders gave verbal orders
to the troops to shoot at protesters:

We were told to shoot if civilians gathered in groups of
more than seven or eight people. Commander of the 154th Regiment
Brigadier General Jawbat Ibrahim Safi and divisional commander Major
General Mohamed Ali Durgham gave us the orders before we went out. The
orders were to shoot at gatherings of protesters as well as defectors, and to
storm houses and arrest people.[54]

·“Mansour,” who served in Air Force Intelligence in
Daraa, said that the commander in charge of Air Force Intelligence in Daraa, Colonel
Qusay Mihoub gave his unit orders to “stop the protesters by all
possible means,” which included the use of lethal force. Mansour said:

Our orders were to make the demonstrators retreat by all
possible means, including by shooting at them. It was a broad order that
shooting was allowed. When officers were present they would decide when and
whom to shoot. If somebody carried a microphone or a sign, or if demonstrators
refused to retreat, we would shoot. We were ordered to fire directly at protesters
many times. We had Kalashnikovs and machine guns, and there were snipers on the
roofs.[55]

·“Najib,” who was stationed in Daraa with the 287th
Battalion, 132nd Brigade, 5th Division, said that the
brigade commander verbally communicated the orders to use lethal force against protesters
to the troops before a major military operation on April 25. He said:

Brigadier General Ahmed Yousef Jarad, the brigade
commander, gathered us in the yard before we moved out. He told us to stop the
people who were rioting by all means necessary. He said that the country needed
to be cleaned of the protesters and said we should shoot at anything
suspicious. He ordered us to use our PKT machine guns and DShK antiaircraft
guns [Russian-made vehicle-mounted weapons] as well. Our general orders were to
kill, destroy stores, crush cars in the streets, and arrest people.[56]

·“Habib,” an officer with the 65th Brigade,
3rd Division, told Human Rights Watch that his unit received initial
orders at a briefing at their base in Douma in mid-March. According to Habib, Major
General Naim Jasem Suleiman, the commander of the 3rd Division, and
Brigadier General Jihad Mohamed Sultan, the commander of 65th
Brigade, told the troops that they would need to fight armed groups
“supported by Israel and the US” and that they had one month to
stop the protests at any cost.[57]

Habib explained that his unit fell
under the command of Imad Fahed Al Jasem during the April 25
operation in Daraa.[58]
According to Habib, his unit also took orders from Brigadier General Ramadan
Mahmoud Ramadan, the commander of the 35th Special Forces
Regiment, in addition to the divisional and brigade commanders mentioned above.[59]

According to Habib, battalion
commander Colonel Mohamed Khader personally gave them additional verbal instructions
immediately before the invasion of Daraa:

Just before the operation, Colonel Mohamed Khader
gave us about 30 minutes of instructions. As we were entering the town, we were
supposed to shoot at anybody who shot at us. But after we entered, our orders
were to shoot at anybody we saw, even if they were just sitting on a balcony.[60]

·“Salim,” an officer with the 46th Special
Forces Regiment deployed to Idlib, said that Major General Fo’ad Hamoudeh,
who had assumed command of the Idlib operation, told the forces to “stop
the protesters at any cost” in the beginning of September.[61]

·“Mohamed,” a soldier with aerial defense unit MD 1010
deployed to Bukamal in the beginning of May, said that the commander of his
unit, Colonel Issa Shibani made it clear that the unit’s
“job was not to arrest people, but to kill.” According to the
soldier, the commander gave verbal orders to “kill anyone putting up
resistance, regardless of whether they are men, women, or children.”[62]
Mohamed said that 35 to 40 people were killed during the first day of the
operation as his unit entered Bukamal. A Special Forces commander Major
General Bader Aqel gave the soldiers orders to pick up the bodies and hand
them over to the mukhabarat.[63]

In some cases, the unit commanders provided clarifications
to written orders, making orders to use lethal force more explicit. For
example, “Tahir,” who served in the 691st Battalion of
the Military Police, said that when the unit was deployed to accompany Special
Forces on a mission to Daraa, the commander of his unit read out a written order
from the commander of military police, General Mohamed Ibrahim Sha`ar (who
became the Minister of Interior on April 14, 2011), saying that the unit was
authorized to open fire “if attacked.” The battalion commander, the
soldier said, then clarified the order, adding that “if anybody or
anything comes your way, fire at them!”[64]

“Ameen,” a sniper with the Special Forces
deployed to Homs in the beginning of May, also said that verbal orders
sometimes differed from written orders. According to Ameen, Colonel Faisal
Bya’i, commander of the 625th Special Forces Battalion,
gave the snipers verbal orders “to kill or kill”— to kill the
protesters or to kill defectors who disobeyed orders. He added:

On paper, it said “Stop the protesters,” but
verbally he explicitly said, “Kill.” During normal days, at curfew,
every moving object was a target. During the protests, the commanders gave us a
specific number, or a percentage, of protesters who should be liquidated. For
5,000 protesters, for example, the target would be 15-20 people.[65]

“Ameen” said that two commanders from the 45th
Regiment, Brigadier General Ghassan Afif and Brigadier General
Mohamed Maaruf, had overall command of the operation in Homs at that time.[66]

Direct orders

More than half of the defectors interviewed by Human Rights
Watch said that the commanders of their units or other officers gave direct
orders on the spot to open fire at protesters or bystanders, and, in some
cases, participated in the killings themselves. From the circumstances of the
cases, it appears that the commanders should have known that the protesters
were unarmed and did not present a significant threat to the soldiers.

Most of the defectors said that they tried to avoid killing
the protesters, by aiming at their feet or firing in the air, but in some cases
did not dare to disobey orders because they thought that they would be killed
(see chapter below). A few took up arms against security agents and officers
who ordered the killings, and many defected when they realized that they were
ordered to shoot at unarmed protesters as opposed to the “armed
gangs” they had been told to expect.

Homs Governorate

·“Said,” a soldier in the 990th Battalion,
134th Brigade, 18th Division, who participated in the
operation in Talbiseh in May, said that Brigadier General Yousef Ismail,
the commander of the 134th Brigade, gave them their standing orders,
while Colonel Fo’ad Khaddour often gave them direct orders. He
said that in early May, Khaddour and Ismail gave verbal orders to open fire at
houses and people on roofs during a funeral in Talbiseh for several protesters
killed the previous day. He said:

During the funerals, many people went to their roofs,
shouting “Allahu Akbar!” [God is great!]. I heard Colonel
Khaddour, who was at our checkpoint at the time, contact Brigadier General Yousef
Ismail by radio. Khaddour told us to start firing, saying that anyone shouting
“Allahu Akbar” from the rooftops was a terrorist. We were firing at
the roofs and houses randomly, from BMPs [tracked armored infantry vehicles]
and smaller weapons.

When Ismail later came to our checkpoint, he said,
“End this at any cost; all ammunition you have is to be used against
them.”[67]

·“Osama,” who served in the 555th Airborne
Regiment, 4th Division, said that Brigadier General Jamal Yunes, commander
of the 555th Regiment, gave them verbal orders to shoot at protesters
during their deployment to Mo`adamiyeh, a neighborhood of Damascus. Osama said
that he later found out that the orders came from Maher al-Assad, de
facto commander of the 4th Division and President
al-Assad’s younger brother. Osama said:

Initially, when the protest started, Brigadier General
Jamal Yunes told us not to shoot. But then he received additional orders
from Maher. He had some kind of paper that he showed the officers, and
then the officers pointed their guns at us, and told us to shoot straight at
the protesters. These officers later told me that the paper contained orders
from Maher to “use all possible means.”[68]

·“Hisham,” who was also deployed to Mo`adamiyeh
neighborhood in Damascus with the 555th Airborne Regiment, 4th
division, said that Captain Khaldoun Ghalia, the commander of their
company, gave them direct verbal orders to open fire on April 23.He
said:

The commander gave us orders to shoot at anyone who refused
to disperse. The protesters were chanting, “The people and the army are
together.” When they approached, the captain gave orders to shoot. We
tried to avoid killing people, and shot at their feet; about 20 people were
injured.[69]

Hisham said that Captain
Khaldoun Ghalia alsoverbally“gave orders to shoot
right away to make them disperse,” when the company was deployed to
disperse a night protest in Qadam neighborhood in Damascus at the beginning of
September. Hisham said he saw people falling, but couldn’t tell how many
since it was dark.[70]

·“Hani,” who served in the Special Operations branch
of Air Force Intelligence, said that his unit was deployed to Mo`adamiyeh
neighborhood in Damascus, together with the 4th Division, on April
15. He said:

We were all armed, with Kalashnikovs and machine guns.
There were thousands of protesters. We started firing in the air, but the protesters
wouldn’t disperse. Then Colonel Suheil Hassan gave orders to shoot
directly at the protesters. He said, “So, they are challenging us?! Shoot
them!” There were people injured and killed.[71]

Hani
also said that Colonel Ghassan Ismail, commander of the Special
Operations unit, gave verbal orders to shoot at the protesters when his unit
was sent to suppress a protest in Daraya neighborhood during another operation
in June, together with the 4th Division. According to Hani, his
orders were “Don’t fire in the air; fire directly [at the
protesters].”[72]

Daraa Governorate

·“Amjad,” who was deployed to Daraa with the 35th
Special Forces Regiment, said that he received direct verbal orders from his
commander to open fire at the protesters on April 25. He said:

The commander of our regiment, Brigadier General Ramadan
Mahmoud Ramadan, usually stayed behind the lines. But this time he stood in
front of the whole brigade. He said, “Use heavy shooting. Nobody will ask
you to explain.” Normally we are supposed to save bullets, but this time
he said, “Use as many bullets as you want.” And when somebody asked
what we were supposed to shoot at, he said, “At anything in front of
you.” About 40 protesters were killed that day. [73]

·“Habib,” who was also deployed to Daraa in April,
with the 65th Brigade, 3rd Division, said that his unit
received direct verbal orders from the battalion commander, Colonel Mohamed
Khader, to open fire at the protesters on at least two occasions. Both
incidents took place between April 13 and 25. Habib said:

The first time, Colonel Khader and the mukhabarat
were just behind us. Khader had given general orders to shoot before the
operations. When the protesters started walking toward us, he gave orders to
open fire.

About a week later, on a Friday, several thousand protesters
gathered at the intersection near the airport highway. Our commander called us
to come to the square to provide support. He said we had to end the protest by
all possible means within an hour, to prevent any media coverage. We used smoke
bombs, and people dispersed, but then they gathered again. Then the mukhabarat
opened fire. We were shooting as well, but tried to shoot in the air. Seven or
eight people were killed, about 30 were injured, and about a hundred detained.[74]

·“Hossam,” who served in Air Force Intelligence in
Daraa, said that at some point in April, his unit was ordered to enter the
Omari mosque in Daraa, which served as a gathering point and makeshift hospital
for the protesters. He said that Colonel Majed Darras gave the unit verbal
orders to open fire and as a result 12 people were killed.[75]

·“Fouad,” who was deployed to Daraa with the 3rd
Battalion, 127th Regiment, 15th Division, said:

I was ordered to shoot at protesters many times, but I shot
in the air since I knew these were ordinary people and not terrorists. Those
who directly ordered us to shoot were Colonel Imad Abass and Major
Ziyad Abdel Shaddoud. They said that we were fighting terrorist groups and
that we had to get rid of them. They told us to kill anybody who was outside in
the street without asking who they were.[76]

·“Ibrahim,” a sergeant in the 59th Battalion,
5th Division, said that his unit received direct verbal orders to
fire at protesters in al-Herak:

Several thousand protesters had gathered near the stadium
in al-Herak in the afternoon on August 7. They started walking towards our
checkpoint where we had 150-200 soldiers and security agents. They were
shouting, “down with the regime!” but they were not armed—no
weapons, rocks, or sticks.

There was an imam among the protesters. Brigadier General
Mohsin Makhlouf, who was commanding the operation in al-Herak, told the imam
that he needed to stop the protesters, but he didn’t, and said that the protesters
were peaceful. Then Briagider General Makhlouf and Brigadier General
Ali Dawwa ordered us to shoot at the protesters.[77]

Ibrahim also said that in a separate
incident, when the unit was deployed at a checkpoint between Izraa and Bosr
al-Harir, Major General Suheil Salman Hassan, commander of the 5th
Division, gave them verbal orders “to shoot at the protesters if they
come near.”[78]

Latakia Governorate

·“Faysal,” a soldier with Coastal Guard 157th
Battalion based in Latakia, said that commander Colonel Hassan Kher Bek
gave verbal orders to open fire when his unit participated in an offensive on
the Palestinian Sands area near Latakia. According to Faysal, Colonel Kher Bek
said “Any moving object—a car, a person—is a target.”[79]

Direct participation in killings

Some defectors said that unit commanders not only ordered
the killings but also killed people themselves. “Afif,” a career
officer who used to serve in the Presidential Guard and took part in the
protests in Nawa, said that the military brought in a new group of forces,
including the 171st Battalion, 112th Brigade, when the
protests restarted in the town in the beginning of August. Afif said he saw
their commander, Colonel Sami Abdulkarim Ali, fire at the protesters
from his Kalashnikov and kill one person, 16-year-old Omran Riad Salman.[80]
Human Rights Watch reviewed footage posted on YouTube that purports to show the
body of a young man identified as Omran Riad Salman killed on August 3 in Nawa.[81]

The majority of the defectors also cited incidents where
they received direct orders to open fire from mukhabarat or other
officers stationed at the same checkpoints, whose names they often did not know
because they were from different units.

For example, “Wassim,” a soldier from 76th
Brigade, 9th Division, told Human Rights Watch that on April 28,
2011, he was sent to al-Tal to man a checkpoint on the way from al-Tal to
Damascus, with orders to use all means necessary, including lethal force, to
prevent the protesters from proceeding to Damascus. He said:

After the noon prayer, the protesters—about 3,500
people, mostly youth—started approaching. They took off their shirts to
show that they were unarmed. When they approached the first checkpoint,
soldiers started shooting, some in the air and some, it seemed, in the crowd.
There were no warnings, no tear gas. It was mainly the army, and mukhabarat
was observing. The army commanders were giving orders, and the mukhabarat
was there to ensure that the soldiers followed them.

People were approaching from different sides, and one guy
came up to me and screamed, “If you are a man, shoot me!” The same
moment, a mukhabarat guy next to me shot him in the shoulder, at close
range, and tried to arrest him. His mother approached us and said, “Let
him go; take me instead!,” and a mukhabarat guy in civilian
clothes in front of me shot the guy point blank and killed him, in front of his
mother. I don’t know how old the guy was; he looked like a teenager. The
protesters managed to take his body away.[82]

“Hassan,” a soldier who was stationed at a
checkpoint near the army base in Douma, another suburb of Damascus, said:
“Mukhabarat officers, who were also at the checkpoint, told us to
shoot at protesters if they tried to approach. They never reached our
checkpoint though; soldiers at the previous checkpoint had opened fire, and
people had dispersed.”[83]

“Faysal,” a soldier with the 157th Coastal
Guard Battalion who was stationed at a checkpoint near Latakia, on the road
from Tishreen University, a public university situated in Latakia, to Aleppo,
described an episode where the mukhabarat and soldiers opened fire at a
civilian car:

Our orders were also to shoot at any car that
wouldn’t stop. One day, I woke up to the sounds of gunfire, and when I
got out, I saw mukhabarat and soldiers firing at a minibus. It was
around 3 a.m.; it must have been some kind of emergency. There was a man
driving the minibus, and his wife sat next to him holding a child. The minibus
stopped, and the woman got out, screaming, “What did you do?! You killed
him!” The man was shot in the back, and he was unconscious. There were
many bullet holes in the bus, but I saw only one bullet wound on the body. We
got a taxi, and sent all three of them off.

The officers from another checkpoint then came to inquire.
One of the guys from my battalion started explaining what happened, but a shabeeha
guy interrupted, saying, “He was armed.” My fellow soldier said,
“no,” but the shabeeah repeated, in a threatening voice,
“He was armed.” We couldn’t argue with them; mukhabarat
backed them up. [84]

“Ziyad,” a soldier with the 324th
Battalion, 167th Brigade, 18th Division, who was based at
a checkpoint in Rastan, described a similar incident that resulted in the
killing of three persons. He said:

It was in the end of July, just before Ramadan. It happened
in front of me, around lunch time. There was a car that was trying to get away
from the protest, and get on the road. It was moving closer to the checkpoint,
and a mukhabarat officer said, “Fire!” One guy from my
battalion raised his Kalashnikov and shot, and others did too.

The car stopped, a man got out of the passenger seat to get
the kid who was in the back, and got shot right there. The driver was killed on
the spot, and another passenger was also killed. We searched the car for
weapons, and didn’t find any, but saw a three-year-old kid in the back.
He was alive. We gave the bodies to mukhabarat; they drove them away in
a car, and left the boy there. I assume some of the protesters took him away;
the protest was winding down at that point.[85]

Arbitrary Detention and Torture

According to information collected by Human Rights Watch,
the Syrian security forces have conducted a widespread and systematic campaign
of arbitrary arrests and torture of detainees across Syria since the beginning
of anti-government protests in March 2011.[86]

Information provided by the defectors in this report, many
of whom personally participated in arrests and ill-treatment, further
corroborates these findings. The defectors described large-scale arbitrary
arrests during protests and at checkpoints, as well as “sweep”
operations in residential neighborhoods in a number of governorates.

Defectors who participated in such operations said that they
conducted the arrests either on the basis of lists of wanted individuals that
they received from their commanders or more general orders to arrest the protesters
or residents of specific neighborhoods.

Most of these arrests appear to have been conducted by the intelligence
agencies, while the military provided support during the arrest and
transportation of detainees. According to the defectors, arrests were routinely
accompanied by beatings and other ill-treatment, which the commanders ordered,
authorized, or condoned. Those defectors who worked in or had access to
detention facilities told Human Rights Watch that they witnessed or
participated in the torture of detainees.

Large-scale arbitrary arrests and looting

The number of people arrested since the beginning of the
protests is impossible to verify. As of November 23, the VDC had documented more
than 15,500 arrests.[87] The
real number is likely much higher.

A member of the Air Force Intelligence Special Operations
branch told Human Rights Watch that he believed the overall number of detainees
to be over 100,000, many of whom had been released again, judging by
information accessible to him. He said that by the time he defected at the end
of August, there were at least 5,000 detainees at the detention facility at his
branch alone.[88]
Another witness, “Mansour,” who served in Air Force Intelligence in
Daraa independently gave Human Rights Watch a similar figure, saying that his
branch arrested about 5,000 people during the three months that he served in
Daraa (April through June), about 600 of whom were released at different times
thereafter.[89]

Information from the defectors about sweep operations in which
they participated lends some support to the high number of detainees provided
by the intelligence officers. As the examples below illustrate, security forces
regularly detained dozens of individuals during protests; “sweep”
operations, which usually took place following protests or after the army
invaded a town, resulted in hundreds of arrests. The raids were often
accompanied by looting and destruction of property that interviewees said
officers condoned.

Daraa Governorate

·“Said,” who was deployed to Talbiseh with the 134th
Brigade, 18th Division, said that after the military moved into the
town in early May, the mukhabarat and army started conducting daily
raids, arresting “anyone older than 14 years, sometimes 20, and sometimes
a 100 people.”[90]
Said also said that the arrest raids in which he participated, authorized by
the mukhabarat and the military, were accompanied by “brazen
looting” and burning of shops.[91]

·“Bassam,” who served in a civil defense unit that
operated under the command of the 18th Division, said that his unit
conducted sweep operations in Talbiseh at the beginning of August, which
resulted in the arrest of 200 people, including five women, and in Rastan two
days later, where they arrested about 300 people.[92]

·“Habib,” a soldier with the 65th Brigade,
3rd Division, described arbitrary arrests and looting during the
raids in Daraa after the army took over the city at the end of April:

When we broke into a
house, we would just crash the door without knocking and detain the
men—one, two, sometimes more—randomly. We humiliated them in front
of their families. Our group normally included ten mukhabarat guys, shabeeha,
and two soldiers. Security and soldiers took TV sets, videos, and other goods.
Sometimes, we would steal cars to drive away the loot.[93]

Tartous Governorate

·“Mousa,” a soldier who was also deployed in the
Banyas area with the 45th Special Forces Regiment, estimated that
together with intelligence agencies his unit arrested several thousand people
in Banyas alone in April and May. He said that the soldiers brought all of the
detainees to the main square in town where they handed them over to the
mukhabarat.[94]
Two other military defectors who were deployed to Banyas, Bayda, and Basateen
in April and May as part of other Special Forces units, also described massive
looting, arrests of relatives of wanted individuals, beating of detainees, and
harassment of women that took place in all of these towns. One of them,
“Zahir,” said:

In Bayda, we broke the doors and took whatever we wanted.
The mukhabarat was arresting people; in one area, they arrested ten old
men to force their children to turn themselves in. The same continued in
Banyas, where we went the next days. In Basateen, we looted everything, both my
unit and others. We always took money, and then whatever was there: gold,
mobiles, electronics, and sometimes even women’s clothing. I saw the mukhabarat
and some soldiers also touching women inappropriately, pretending to be looking
for bombs and explosives.[95]

Damascus Governorate

·“Fadi,” a soldier with the 292nd
Battalion, Presidential Guard, said that Colonel Murad `Isa gave his
unit orders to raid houses in the Mezzeh area in Damascus in mid-April
“to extract armed terrorists.” He said the unit provided support to
mukhabarat personnel who went inside and arrested about 15 people, none
of whom seemed to have weapons.[96]
He said that such raids took place every Friday, in Damascus and the suburbs,
and resulted in dozens of arrests each time.

·“Hisham,” a soldier with the 555th
Airborne Regiment, 4th Division, said that his unit participated in
multiple raids in various neighborhoods in Damascus, including Daraya, Sakba,
Qadam, Qabun, and Zamalka, from April to September. All of the raids resulted
in dozens, and some in hundreds, of arrests. He said he particularly remembered
two of the raids in early September, in the Qadam and Qabun neighborhoods. He
said:

At dawn, 15 buses with Air Force Intelligence arrived and
started raiding houses in Qadam. We manned checkpoints and grabbed anybody who
tried to run away. Three of my mom’s cousins, who live in the area, were
arrested that night.

Several days later, commanders took us to another area,
Qabun. There they told us to conduct raids on the houses as well. We had a list
of 900 wanted people. We were there for two days, and arrested about 800 people
from that neighborhood. We were at checkpoints preventing escapes. Each
checkpoint would receive an updated list, so I knew the numbers.[97]

Deir al-Zor Governorate

·“Mohamed,” who was deployed in Bukamal as part of
aerial defense unit MD 1010, said that the commanders instructed the soldiers
and security services to arrest family members to make the wanted individuals
surrender:

I participated in such raids many times. One time, we went
to a house, looking for two wanted men. Another soldier and I were waiting
outside. The two men were not at home. We took money and gold, and arrested two
women and three kids: two boys, ages about 15 and 10, and a little girl. The mukhabarat
hooded the women, and punched them, saying, “We are not going to let you
go until the men return, and now you’ll see what ‘freedom’ is
like.”[98]

Mohamed said that during the
invasion of the town, the soldiers “looted stores and burned
pharmacies.”[99]

Hama Governorate

·“Ali,” who was based in Hama in June with the 11th
Division, said that soldiers from his unit were involved in the arrests and
large-scale looting in the city, taking anything of value, and that he
personally saw one of the officers “taking a fridge from the house and
loading it into an army truck.”[100]

Defectors who used to man checkpoints told Human Rights
Watch that the lists of “wanted” individuals that they received
included anywhere from 200 to more than 1,000 names. They said they were
supposed to arrest the people on the lists, but that they often arrested those
who were not on the list for different reasons such as “suspicious
looks,” or “talking back to the soldiers.”

For example, “Faysal,” a soldier with the 157th
Coastal Guard Battalion, who was based in Latakia, said that his checkpoint,
located on the road from Tishreen University to Aleppo, had a list of about 500
people. During the five days that he spent at the checkpoint, they arrested
about 200 people. The orders to arrest people, he said, were given by Colonel
Hassan Kher Bek.[101]

“Ali,” a soldier from the 11th
Division based in Hama in June, said that his group, responsible for manning
the checkpoints, had a list of about a thousand wanted individuals.[102]

Several defectors mentioned that as the number of detainees
kept growing, the security forces started running out of space in regular
detention facilities, and started turning schools, stadiums, and other
locations into ad-hoc detention centers.

“Ghassan,” who was deployed in Douma with the
106th Brigade, Presidential Guard, said:

On an average Friday, we, together with State Security [one
of the intelligence agencies], arrested about 50 people, anyone between ages 15
and 50, after the protests. I saw many bribe their way out, but there still
wasn’t enough room for all the detainees. We turned many schools and
other buildings into detention facilities. The purpose of these arrests was to
scare people so that they would not participate in protests anymore, and to
make money.[103]

“Mansour,” who served in Air Force Intelligence,
said that there were so many detainees in Daraa that they turned Daraa stadium,
which was serving as operational headquarters, into an ad hoc detention
facility for thousands of detainees.[104] Several other
defectors also said that thousands of detainees were held in the stadium,
guarded by the mukhabarat and Special Forces. “Najib,” who
served in Daraa with the 287th Battalion, 132nd Brigade,
5th Division, said:

Inside the stadium there were Special Forces, but mostly
they were intelligence agents. There were four or five senior commanders,
brigadier generals, in the stadium as well, but I don’t know their names.
It was full of people; they were all close to each other. It was difficult to
walk without stepping on somebody. People were brought there in buses, from
Daraa and surrounding towns.[105]

Orders to beat and mistreat the detainees

Defectors from the military and the intelligence agencies
who were involved in the arrest operations said that they beat detainees during
arrest and transportation to the detention facilities. Some cited specific
orders they received from their commanders in this respect.

·Lieutenant Colonel “Ghassan,” who was deployed to
Douma in March-April, said that Brigadier General Mohamed Khadur, the
commander of the 106th Brigade, Presidential Guard, verbally ordered
him to beat the protesters with sticks and then arrest them. According to
Ghassan, Khadur said he received his orders from Major General Shoaeb
Suleiman, commander of the Presidential Guard.[106]

Ghassan said that they initially took the detainees to their
temporary headquarters in the mayor’s office in Douma, beat them there
for several hours and then handed them over to State Security in Daraa.[107]
Ghassan also said that Brigadier General Issam Zaher Din of the 104th
Brigade, Presidential Guard, whom he regularly saw during the operations in Douma,
“ordered most of the beatings” in Douma and “always carried
an electric baton to attack the protesters.”[108]

Ghassan said that after one of the protesters arrested in
Douma in the early days of the protests died from head injuries sustained as a
result of the beating, Brigadier General Mohamed Khadur, the commander
of the 106th Brigade, Presidential Guard,specified the
orders:

It was one of the first deaths in custody and it was
covered by the media. So shortly after it happened, Brigadier General Khadur
addressed us at one of the morning meetings and gave us orders not to hit
people on the head too much, and instead break their arms and legs so that they
can’t go to protests again. He also said, “Try not to beat people
out in public too much; do it inside the buses.”[109]

·“Amir,” who was deployed in Deir al-Zor with the 240th
Brigade, said that the commander of his battalion personally participated in
arrests and beatings:

There was a protest in the city on the second day of
Ramadan [on August 2]. We surrounded the protesters, firing at those who tried
to run away, and then started arresting people. We detained about 50 people. I
saw our commander, Colonel Essam, personally beat them. He had a camera,
and I watched as he demanded that they confess to being terrorists, having
weapons, and receiving money from the US and Saad al-Hariri [a former Lebanese
prime minister]. Two people agreed. He filmed the confessions, and said he
would tell the guards not to torture these two.[110]

·“Hisham,” a
soldier with the 555th Airborne Regiment, 4th Division,
said that his unit was deployed to conduct arrests in the Daraya neighborhood
of Damascus in May. He said:

We had batons, and the shabeeha had weapons; they
wore black clothes. We were running after people, and those we grabbed wished
they had died because of how badly we beat them. On that day, Captain
Mohamed Harb was in charge. He used to shoot with his pistol at those we
couldn’t catch.

Then my unit and the shabeeha started breaking cars.
The shabeeha said that these cars were used by protesters. We smashed
them with stones and sticks. One of the guys in my unit didn’t want to
participate, but one of the shabeehas put a gun to his head and said,
“Do it, or I’ll kill you.”[111]

·“Mousa,” a soldier in the 230th Battalion,
45th Special Forces Regiment, said that they arrested and beat
detainees in Bayda on the orders of their commanders. He said:

In the morning of April 12 we arrived to Bayda. Our orders
were to enter the houses and arrest all males older than 14 years. We raided
the houses and took all males to the main square. We beat them, insulted them,
laid them on the ground and stepped on them. The orders came from Colonel
Mansour, commander of the 230th Battalion, who said he received
them from the Brigadier General Ghassan Afif, commander of the 45th
Regiment.[112]

·“Yasir” who served in the Special Forces and was
stationed at a checkpoint outside Banyas, said that mukhabarat
encouraged the soldiers to beat the detainees. He said, “Military
Intelligence and State Security officers were responsible for the checkpoint.
They gave the soldiers freedom to do whatever they wanted. They would say,
‘Beat them, search them, they are dogs; do whatever you want.”[113]

Torture at detention facilities

While most of the defectors were only involved in
transporting the detainees to various detention facilities, a few, mainly those
who served in the mukhabarat, had first-hand knowledge of the situation
inside the facilities. Their statements corroborate the widespread use of
torture in detention previously documented by Human Rights Watch and provide
additional details on the security officials in charge.

·One of the mukhabarat defectors, “Omar,” who
worked at the director’s office at the Air Force Intelligence Special
Operations branch based in the Mezzeh airport, said that after the Saida
operation (see above), Air Force Intelligence officers brought back 160
detainees. Omar was responsible for organizing their transfer to the
Investigative Branch of the Air Force Intelligence and thus had access to the
name list. He said that the detainees were held at the detention facility at
the Mezzeh airport. Eventually all but two of them were released.[114]

Omar said these and other
detainees whom he saw both during his service and during his detention (see
below) were repeatedly tortured in detention at the Mezzeh facility and in two
other detention facilities run by Air Force Intelligence, in each of which he
spent time. He provided Human Rights Watch with detailed descriptions and
sketches of the three facilities and their locations.

He said that the methods of
torture that he observed used by interrogators at the Mezzeh facility included
prolonged beatings with sticks and lashing with whips; suspension of detainees
by their hands from the ceiling, at times for hours or even days; use of
electric cattle prods and an electroshock machine with wires attached to
different parts of detainees’ bodies; as well as food, water, and sleep
deprivation.[115]

According to Omar, Brigadier
General Abdulsalam Fajer Mahmud, as the head of the Investigative Branch of
Air Force Intelligence, was in charge of all three detention facilities.[116]

·Another witness, “Hani,” who also served at the
Special Operations branch of Air Force Intelligence, said that he participated
in the arrests and beatings of detainees, both during transportation and at the
detention facility. The abuse, he said, was authorized by his commander Colonel
Suheil Hassan. He said:

On April 1, we were conducting arrests in Mo’adamiyeh
neighborhood in Damascus. We received our orders from Colonel Suheil Hassan.
He told us explicitly to beat people severely on the heads, and not worry about
the consequences. We also used electric cattle prods. The order was communicated
verbally, before we got dispatched.

We were beating people inside the buses, and then at the
detention facility at the base. At the detention facility, we would first put
people in the yard, and beat them randomly, without any interrogation. I was
involved in escorting prisoners to the yard, and then to the detention
facility. That day we arrested about 100 people. We put all of them in a five
by five meter cell.

My unit was also involved in beating people. My heart was
boiling inside, but I couldn’t show it because I knew what would happen
to me.[117]

·“Salim,” an officer with the 46th Special
Forces Regiment, said that he witnessed the beating and humiliation of
detainees at Avant-garde camp in Idlib that served as headquarters for
the Special Forces there. He said:

From July to September, mukhabarat brought detainees
to the camp, usually 10 to 30 people, around 9 or 10 p.m. after every protest
(and they happened almost daily). They lined them up, blindfolded, put them on
their knees and beat them up. They swore, and put their feet on people’s
heads. It was outside, right near my office. They beat them up while waiting
for Al Jasem [Imad Fahed Al Jasem, who oversaw the operations in
Idlib] to come to inspect the detainees.

The mukhabarat also brought young soldiers,
including guys from my unit, told them that these detainees were terrorists,
and made them beat them.

When Al Jasem arrived, he would swear at the
detainees for participating in the protests. And then they would take them to a
nearby prison. The prison was guarded by the soldiers from my unit, so I
sometimes went there. They held the detainees there for a night, in a six by
seven meter room, without food or water.

Most of them were between 16 and 18 years old, but there
were some kids that looked much younger. I asked two boys who looked
particularly young when they were born; one said in 1998, and the other said in
2000. I think many kids were caught because they didn’t know how to
escape. There were also a few detainees over 60. Some of the detainees were
doctors, arrested for helping the wounded.[118]

·One of the defectors, “Afif,” a career officer who
served for over 20 years in the Presidential Guard, said that he was arrested
and tortured by Military Intelligence agents first in Daraa, and then in
Damascus, for his role as a protest organizer in Daraa. He said that the people
who arrested him in Daraa included Colonel Wafiq Nasseer, Colonel
Louai Ali, Colonel Osama Hadj, and Colonel Nadal Abdallah, all of
whom he knew personally.

After strip-searching and beating
him in the Military Intelligence facility in Daraa, intelligence agents
transferred him to branch 291 in Damascus where, for eight days, they brutally
tortured him with electric shock and prolonged beatings. Afif said that
although he was blindfolded all the time he was held at branch 291, he
recognized (by their voices and by asking them directly) two of the
interrogators who tortured him as Brigadier General Salah Hamoud and Colonel
Asef Dakkar, both of whom he knew from the time he served in the
Presidential Guard. Afif said that toward the end of his detention the director
of Military Intelligence Abdul Fatah Kudsiyeh interrogated him and,
unsuccessfully, tried to get him to cooperate with the authorities.[119]

Afif also said that he was
arrested for a second time during the military offensive in Nawa in April. He
said that together with about 5,000 other detainees he was brought to the
Military Intelligence base near Nawa where Colonel Nadal Abdallah
personally beat him and other detainees.[120]

Executions and deaths in custody

One of the most worrisome features of the intensifying
crackdown on protesters in Syria has been the growing number of custodial
deaths since the beginning of July. Local activists have reported more than 197
deaths in custody.[121]
Human Rights Watch has previously documented many such cases, specifically in
Daraa and Homs governorates.[122]

Two defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch shared
information about the summary executions of detainees or deaths from torture in
detention in Bukamal and Douma. One of the cases allegedly involved up to 17
deaths.

·Bukamal: “Mohamed,” a soldier with the 1010 unit,
said that he participated in the arrest of 17 people in Bukamal around July 15,
2011. Together with the Anti-Terrorism Unit of the General Intelligence
Directorate, they surrounded a school where people were hiding. He said:

They had weapons, shotguns, and there was an exchange of
fire for about ten minutes, but nobody was injured. Then we blocked the entrances,
and the mukhabarat’s anti-terrorism unit went in. The men
surrendered, and the mukhabarat hand-cuffed them, dragged them out into
the school yard, and started beating them. Then they took them away, I
didn’t know to where.

Then, six or seven days later, an ice-cream truck came to
our base bringing 17 bodies. Military Intelligence agents brought the bodies
and told our commander to take care of them. Our commander ordered us to bring
the bodies to the town square and dump them there. Some of the bodies were in
bags, others not.

Suddenly, we recognized some of the faces. Somebody said,
“Oh, remember! These are the guys from the school.” The bodies that
I could see looked like they’d been dead for a few days, all stiff, and
the blood was dry. They were fully naked, with traces from handcuffs and, dried
blood on their heads and chests. Some seemed to have bullet wounds, but it was
hard to tell, and they had holes that looked like they were drilled on their
arms, legs, and shoulders. I don’t know whether all of the 17 were there,
but I recognized quite a few of them.[123]

·Douma: Lieutenant Colonel “Ghassan,” who served in
the Presidential Guard, said that around August 7, 2011, he witnessed a summary
execution of a detainee at a checkpoint in Douma. He told Human Rights Watch:

I was stationed at a checkpoint in the Abdul Ra’uf
neighborhood in Douma. My shift was supposed to be from 4 p.m. to midnight. I
arrived at 3.45 p.m. and immediately heard screams and sounds of beatings from
an abandoned building near the checkpoint. I went in, and it turned out that Colonel
Mohamed Saker, who had the shift at the checkpoint before me, had arrested
someone from the “wanted” list. I wanted to take over right away to
stop it, and said it was my shift. But Saker said, “No, be patient,
we’ll deal with him first.”

Seven soldiers were beating the man whom they had arrested.
When I came, he was still alive. He was screaming, and the soldiers were
swearing and laughing. It lasted for about five minutes longer, and then he died.
He stopped moving, and I saw blood coming out of his mouth.

When I took over, I informed Khadur [commander of 106th
brigade of the Presidential Guard Brigadier General Mohamed Khadur] that
we had a fatality. He ordered us to leave the checkpoint and the body behind.
We went back to headquarters. Somebody must have picked up the body. People saw
us coming out of that building.[124]

Ghassan said that to his
knowledge, despite reporting the death in custody to Khadur, there has been no
investigation of the incident.

Denial of Medical Assistance

Military defectors also provided further information about
the denial of medical assistance to wounded protesters, use of ambulances to
arrest the injured, and the mistreatment of injured detainees in hospitals controlled
by the mukhabarat and the military—a disturbing pattern that Human
Rights Watch and other organizations have previously documented.[125]

Several examples cited by the defectors strongly suggest
that these violations were ordered, authorized, or condoned by commanders
rather than committed at the initiative of individual members of the armed
forces or security services.

One of the defectors, Lieutenant Colonel “Ghassan,”
said that during his deployment in Douma with the 106th Brigade,
Presidential Guard, he always used an ambulance to move around. He explained:

The Martyrs’ Road where the protesters always went
was considered a high-tension area. State Security gave me an ambulance to move
around. They confiscated the ambulances to make sure they were not available to
pick up wounded protesters. It also made it much easier to arrest people
initially, until the protesters realized that the ambulances were used by
security services and started running away.

Since the people could not use the ambulances, they would
pick up the wounded in private cars. When I was manning checkpoints, we
specifically looked for such cars. If there was a wounded person in a car, or
even traces of blood, we would immediately arrest everybody in the car.[126]

Another witness, “Munir”, who served in the 409th
Battalion, 154th Regiment, 4th Division, and was deployed
in Damascus and its suburbs, also said that the army used ambulances “all
the time” to detain people instead of providing them medical assistance.[127]

Human Rights Watch has previously documented cases of protesters
being killed as they were trying to help the injured or deliver them to the
hospital. One of the defectors, “Ameen,” a sniper with the Special
Forces, confirmed these accounts. He said that between June 5 and 10, he was
deployed near Jisr al-Shughur in Idlib. “Ameen” said that he was
positioned on top of a government building near a hospital that the army and mukhabarat
had taken over, with orders “to shoot at anybody trying to bring an
injured person in the hospital.”[128]

According to the defectors, some of the wounded protesters
were brought directly to the detention facilities where they were mistreated.
For example, “Hani,” who served in the Special Operations Unit of
the Air Force Intelligence, said that his unit brought about 20 injured
protesters, along with about 30 other detainees, back to the detention facility
in Mezzeh after they dispersed a protest in Mo’adamiyeh on April 15. He
said:

We brought them to the yard at the facility and beat them,
including the ones who were wounded. We had a doctor in the branch who was
treating them to stop the bleeding and the like. Somebody would say,
“Take this one to the doctor,” and as they walked to the other side
of the yard, where the doctor was, we beat them. And then we took the detainees
to the detention facility.[129]

Injured protesters who were brought to the military, or
military-controlled, hospitals were also subjected to mistreatment and beatings
by security agents and hospital staff. Those whose wounds were serious and did
not allow for immediate transportation were held in temporary detention
facilities on hospital premises before being transferred to other places of
detention.

“Nizar,” who was a guard in the military
hospital in Homs, said that security forces regularly brought injured civilians
to the hospital since the beginning of the protests, but instead of providing
them with medical assistance, they subjected them to beatings and then detained
them. He said:

Mukhabarat and the army brought the injured and
unloaded them in the yard next to the emergency area. Everybody would start
beating them, including doctors and nurses. All the detainees were blindfolded.

After the initial beating in the yard, the nurses and
guards took the wounded into the emergency room, provided them some basic
assistance, and then the mukhabarat took them. They first held them in a
detention facility on the premises for a few days; the army police was in
charge of it. Then Air Force Intelligence took them away in their cars. That
was the case with every single injured person brought to the hospital. I think
people were tortured in the detention facility because I regularly heard their
screams. People with serious wounds were taken to intensive care and guarded
there by army police. Sometimes, soldiers would go in there and I heard people
screaming; I think they were beating them inside there.

Colonel Dr. Haitham Othman was in charge of the
hospital. The chief doctor in the hospital was trying to tell him and the mukhabarat
not to torture people because the hospital’s job was to treat people and
not to torture them, but everybody just ignored him.

We were not supposed to allow any family members in. When
relatives asked at the gate, we told them that this was an army hospital and it
didn’t have any civilians.

They had TV cameras in the hospital almost every day. The
crew filmed the wounded, but didn’t interview them, and then they
commented that people had been attacked by armed gangs.[130]

“Faysal,” a soldier with the 157th
Coastal Guard Battalion based in Latakia, described to Human Rights Watch the
conditions in the military hospital near Latakia where he went after getting
sick. He said that there were about 50 to 70 injured civilians in the hospital,
and about 17 injured military personnel, and that all of the civilians that he
could see were ill-treated in the hospital. He explained:

Civilians weren’t getting proper treatment. They were
essentially under arrest in the hospital. And they were denied medical care. At
some point, an old man came with his son who was wounded. The old man was
shouting, trying to get help for his son. Instead, security guards took him to
a room and beat him; when he came out, his head was bleeding.

Another civilian was brought in, on a stretcher, with a
bullet in his shoulder. A mukhabarat guy yelled at the nurse who was
trying to help him, “What is he doing here?!” The nurse said it was
her cousin. But the mukhabarat guy said, “So what?! Let him pay
for his mistakes!”[131]

Command Responsibility of
High-Ranking Officers and Government Officials

As mentioned above, in addition to individual responsibility
in cases where they ordered or directly participated in the abuses, senior
military commanders and high-ranking officials in some cases bear command
responsibility for violations committed by forces or subordinates.
Specifically, they are responsible in cases where they knew or should have
known of the abuses and failed to take action to stop them.
Given the widespread nature of killings and other crimes committed in Syria and
the fact that in many cases, as this report illustrates, these crimes were ordered,
authorized, or condoned by mid- and senior-level commanders, it is reasonable
to conclude that the senior military and civilian leadership knew or should
have known about them. The extensive documentation of the violations publicized
by human rights organizations, the media, and the United Nations makes it even
harder to argue that the authorities were not informed.
As for action taken to stop the violations, Human Rights Watch is not aware of
any meaningful steps taken by the Syrian leadership in this regard.[132]
Moreover, in a number of cases documented in this report, military commanders
clearly disregarded reports of abuse, let alone took adequate action to address
them.
In the case of President Bashar al-Assad, who is the commander-in-chief of
Syrian army, and his close associates, including heads of intelligence agencies
and military leadership, Human Rights Watch collected additional information
that strongly indicates their knowledge and involvement in the violent
crackdown on protesters.

Witness statements indicate that President al-Assad was
closely involved in ordering the operations to suppress the protests. Several defectors
told Human Rights Watch that senior commanders said that specific orders came
directly from the President. For example, a soldier from the 324th
Battalion, 167th Brigade, 18th Division, told Human
Rights Watch that when the brigade commander, Brigadier General Ali Mohamed
Hamdan, gave orders to invade the town of Rastan, he said that the orders
came “straight from President Bashar al-Assad.”[133]

“Afif,” a former military officer who became one
of the leaders of protesters in the Daraa governorate, said that President al-Assad
participated via a conference call in a meeting between high-ranking military
and intelligence commanders and the leaders of the protest movement, which was
held in the Baath party headquarters in Daraa on April 7, 2011. Afif, who was
present in the meeting, told Human Rights Watch that during the meeting, which
was largely intended to intimidate the protest organizers, President al-Assad
said to the military and intelligence officials, “What’s going on
over there?! Get the situation under control by all means necessary!”[134]

In August, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph published
two written orders that were signed by the Minister of Defense on behalf of the
President in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In the orders,
signed on April 23, 2011, The Minister of Defense placed the 4th Division
“on high alert,” and deployed the 62nd Battalion, 47th
Regiment to Daraa. While it is not known whether President al-Assad directly
authorized these operations, the fact that his authority was invoked is further
proof that he knew, or at the very least, should have known about them.[135]

A mukhabarat defector, “Omar,” who was an
assistant in the director’s office at the Air Force Intelligence Special
Operations branch in Damascus, told Human Rights Watch about the planning of
the operation in Saida, one of the bloodiest massacres since the beginning of
the protests, which, according to him, was authorized by Major GeneralJamil
Hassan, the director of Air Force Intelligence. VDC was able to document 98
deaths in Daraa on April 29 and 30 as a result of the operation, and Omar
believed that 120 people were killed.[136]

He said that on April 29, 2011, his office received a call
from Daraa saying that thousands of people were moving toward the city to break
the siege. Omar said:

Colonel Suheil Hassan, my boss at the Special
Operations unit consulted with his deputy, Fawaz Qubair, and they agreed
to organize a “trap” for the protesters near the military housing
in Saida. The conversation took place in the office where I worked. They also
discussed their line with the media: that people marching to Daraa were
Islamists coming to kidnap women and children in predominantly Christian areas.

I then saw Suheil call Major GeneralJamil Hassan,
the director of Air Force Intelligence, to get his approval for the mission. He
has a designated line to Hassan, and he used that phone. I couldn’t hear
what Hassan said, but I assume he approved the mission, because shortly
thereafter, troops started leaving our base in Mezzeh for Daraa.[137]

Omar said that when the troops returned that evening, they
brought 120 bodies of killed protesters back to the base, as well as 160
detainees. He said that he saw the troops unloading the bodies from the buses
and asked one of the soldiers how many they were. Suheil Hassan, he said, later
told him to arrange a convoy to accompany the trucks with the bodies back to
Daraa.[138]

Human Rights Watch also collected extensive information
about the participation of specific military units and intelligence agencies in
attacks against the protesters in different cities and large-scale military
operations that resulted in killings, massive arrests, torture, and other
violations.

This information is summarized in the appendix to this
report, which contains details on the structure of the units, locations where
they were deployed, violations in which they were allegedly involved, and,
wherever this information was available, the names of their commanders or
officials in charge.
Human Rights Watch believes that, in addition to military and mukhabarat
officers mentioned in connection with specific incidents in this report, these
commanders, including the highest-ranking officers and heads of intelligence
agencies, should be investigated on the grounds of their command responsibility
for violations committed by units under their control.

III. Repercussions for Disobeying
Illegal Orders

Consequences for disobeying orders and challenging
government allegations about the protests were severe. Eight defectors told
Human Rights Watch that they had witnessed officers or intelligence agents kill
soldiers for refusing to carry out orders. Three defectors interviewed by Human
Rights Watch said that they had been arrested and tortured for disobedience,
and one defector said that a close relative had been arrested as a means of
putting pressure on him to return to his unit. There are no comprehensive
numbers about the numbers of soldiers killed for refusing to carry out illegal
orders.

Executions

Virtually all defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch
said that they were convinced that officers or intelligence agents would kill
them if they refused to follow orders. In standard operations to suppress
protests, conscript soldiers from the army or intelligence agencies lined up in
front, while officers and intelligence agents stayed behind, giving orders and
making sure they followed orders. Many of the defectors said that they tried to
aim above the heads of the protesters when they received orders to shoot, but
that they were always afraid that the officers or the security agents would
notice. Several defectors also told Human Rights Watch that snipers on rooftops
targeted both protesters and soldiers who disobeyed their orders. “Ameen,”
a sniper interviewed by Human Rights Watch, confirmed that he had received
orders to target defectors.[139]

On several occasions, officers and intelligence agents
explicitly threatened soldiers that they would be killed if they did not follow
orders. A tank operator from the 132nd Brigade, 5th
Division, based in Daraa, told Human Rights Watch that before the April 25
operation in Daraa the brigade commander, Brigadier General Ahmed Yousef
Jarad, threatened that anybody showing sympathy with the protesters would
be shot and treated as a traitor. The tank operator, who was communicating with
commanding officers over the radio and heard orders given to other units as
well, said that during the operation, high-ranking officers sometimes
threatened tank crews with execution, and that he heard on the radio that
several soldiers had been executed in the Daraa stadium on April 25.[140]

“Habib,” a conscript soldier from the 65th
Brigade, 3rd Division, told Human Rights Watch that a soldier from
his battalion was killed for not following orders during a protest in Douma
near Damascus around April 14. When protesters started moving towards the soldiers
after the noon prayer, Colonel Mohamed Khader, the battalion commander,
gave orders to shoot directly at the protesters. “Habib” told Human
Rights Watch:

The soldiers were in
front. Colonel Khader and the security agents were standing right behind us.
Yusuf Musa Krad, a 21-year-old conscript from Daraa, was standing right next to
me. At some point the colonel noticed that Yusuf was only shooting in the air.
He told First Lieutenant Jihad from the regional branch of Military
Intelligence. They were always together. Jihad called a sniper on the roof,
pointed at Yusuf, and the sniper then shot Yusuf twice in the head. Intelligence
agents took Yusuf’s body away. The next day we saw Yusuf’s body on
TV. They said that he had been killed by terrorists.[141]

“Ibrahim,” a sergeant from the 59th
Battalion, 5th Division, recounted a similar incident to Human
Rights Watch. In the afternoon on August 7, a large group of protesters
gathered near the stadium in al-Herak and then started moving towards the
soldiers’ checkpoint. According to Ibrahim, Brigadier General Mohsin
Makhlouf, who was commanding the operation in al-Herak, first asked the protesters
to stop. When they refused, he ordered the soldiers to open fire at the protesters.
Ibrahim told Human Rights Watch:

There were about 100
soldiers in the front row. Fifteen to twenty meters behind us stood agents from
Air Force Intelligence. When we received the orders to shoot at the protesters,
some of the soldiers started shooting in the air while others were shooting
directly at the protesters. A couple of soldiers dropped their guns, refusing
to shoot. Suddenly, agents from Air Force Intelligence opened fire on those who
dropped their weapons, killing at least three soldiers from Brigade 52. I
don’t know their names. When I saw that, I took my gun, ran away, and
started shooting at the security agents.[142]

“Osama,” a conscript soldier in the 555th
Regiment, 4th Division, told Human Rights Watch that Air Force
Intelligence killed a soldier from his regiment in Mo’adamiyeh, Damascus,
in May:

When they ordered us to shoot at the protesters, we
initially refused, but then they pointed their guns at us, and we
couldn’t refuse. One soldier from Hama was standing next to me. He had
finished his ammunition so he had stopped shooting while he waited for more.
Suddenly somebody from Air Force Intelligence shot him in the stomach and he
died on the spot.[143]

On April 21, a sniper opened fire on soldiers in Douma,
according to an officer interviewed by Human Rights Watch. “Ghassan,”
a lieutenant colonel in the 106th Brigade, Presidential Guard, told
Human Rights Watch that on that day, his unit suddenly took fire at their
checkpoint at the Martyrs’ Roundabout. According to the lieutenant
colonel, the fire came from an area behind them that had already been secured,
and two people from the 104th Brigade were killed.

Following the direction of the shooting, the lieutenant
colonel went up to the roof of a building where he found a sniper who had
previously served in his unit. According to the lieutenant colonel, the sniper
said that he had received orders to fire at the soldiers who refused to shoot
at protesters, but that he was trying not to hit soldiers from the 106th
Brigade, his former unit.[144]

“Said,” a tank commander from the 990th
Battalion, 134th Brigade, 18th Division, told Human
Rights Watch that a soldier in his unit was shot by a sniper in Talbiseh for
refusing to follow orders in early May. Said was staying inside a small dorm
near his unit’s checkpoint when he heard noises outside. When he went
out, he saw four civilians in the street about 100 meters from the checkpoint,
chanting. According to Said, Colonel Fo’ad Khaddour, a senior
officer in the 134th Brigade, ordered the soldier on guard to shoot
at the soldiers, but the soldier refused. Said told Human Rights Watch:

“Bilal” told the colonel that the protesters
were just chanting. Why should he shoot at them? They got into an argument. An intelligence
agent standing nearby, Ahmed Diba, heard the argument. He gave an order on the
radio, and suddenly the soldier was shot in the head. They told us that he was
killed by protesters, but the sniper, whom we knew, told us that he had
received the orders from Diba. Sometime later, Diba warned me that I should
stop telling my crew to shoot in the air unless I wanted to suffer the same
fate as Bilal.[145]

“Ziyad,” a conscript serving in the 324th
Battalion, 167th Brigade, 18th Division, told Human
Rights Watch that a security agent killed a soldier in his battalion in mid-May
in Rastan when the soldier refused to follow orders. He told Human Rights
Watch:

We knew that if we refused to shoot, we would be killed. Intelligence
agents were behind us at the checkpoint. When my friend, Yousef Khad,
questioned the orders to shoot at the protesters, an Air Force Intelligence
agent shot him from the back. Some soldiers opened fire on the intelligence
agents, and another three soldiers from another battalion were killed. The
agents were not hurt; they were hiding behind the tanks. We all got very scared
after that, so we started shooting at the protesters, trying not to aim at
people.[146]

In some cases, the motivation for shooting at soldiers
seemed to be not primarily to punish soldiers who disobeyed, but to convince
soldiers that protesters were armed. “Ihab,” a soldier from the 35th
Regiment participating in the April 25 invasion of Daraa, told Human Rights
Watch that shortly after soldiers refused to open fire on unarmed protesters,
he saw a white Toyota pick-up vehicle drive up to a nearby building and a man
with a rifle taking position on top of the roof. He told Human Rights Watch:

We saw him take position, but we were told to leave him
alone, that he was a intelligence agent. The officers were still discussing. I
went to speak with my friends. Suddenly, there were shots. The sound came from
the gunman on the roof. The brigadier general said “See, there are armed
groups!” We then started shooting. About 40 people were killed. The army
collected the bodies and handed them over to Military Intelligence.[147]

Detention and Torture

Three defectors told Human Rights Watch that they had been
detained because they refused to follow orders or challenged government
propaganda. Two of them said that security forces beat and tortured them. Other
defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch also said they were detained and
tortured as a result of participating in protests during leave or before they
started their military service.

The defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch were
detained for relatively short terms in detention centers on their base or in
detention facilities relatively close to their base. Other defectors, according
to witnesses, were sent to the notorious Tadmor military prison in Homs
governorate.[148]

A prison guard from
Tadmor told Human Rights Watch that by the time he defected in August, there
were about 2,500 prisoners in Tadmor. While the prisoners used to be only
military personnel, the prison started receiving a growing number of arrested protesters
and defectors after protests erupted in March. He told Human Rights Watch that
all prisoners were beaten and tortured, but that defectors were given
particularly harsh treatment:

We gave all new
arrivals a “reception party” to humiliate them. We blindfolded them
for five to six days, verbally abused them, and beat them up using the tire
method [forcing the detainee’s legs and arms through a tire and beating
him on the soles of his feet]. Then, depending on the crimes, we subjected some
prisoners to other methods as well. The shabeh [protracted suspension by
the hands] and solitary confinement were reserved for special crimes. When the
protests started, we also received rechargeable electrical sticks, which would
send shocks with the click of a button.

We used all the methods against defectors. We didn’t
care whether they were from Assad’s 4th Division or a regular
division. We tortured them to show them that nobody is above the law and so
that they would learn their lesson.[149]

“Wassim,” a conscript serving in a unit based
near Damascus, told Human Rights Watch that he was detained and tortured after
he refused to shoot at protesters in al-Tal, a town just north of Damascus, on
April 28. He told Human Rights Watch:

Our commander approached me and asked me why I was not
shooting. I told him that I would not kill another human being for him or for
Assad. About half of the soldiers from my unit, some 30 people, mainly the
older guys, said the same. We outnumbered the security agents, so there
wasn’t much they could do. Eventually, they took us back to the base.[150]

That same night, he said that about 30 people in civilian
clothes arrived at the base and detained the soldiers who had refused to carry
out the orders. He said that he could see under the blindfold that there were
signs saying “Military Police” on the cars. After driving for about
an hour, they took them to an underground location and removed their
blindfolds. Wassim told Human Rights Watch:

We were in a hallway, about three meters wide and very
long. There was blood on the walls, and it smelled horribly. It felt like a
slaughter house. They made us take off all of our clothes, leaving us
completely naked, and pushed us into a room that was about three by four
meters. They poured water on us and turned up the air conditioner. It was
freezing cold, and there was no light. On the second or third day, they took me
out of the cell and put me in a cell that was hanging above the floor in the
corridor. I could hardly fit into it. I spent the rest of my time in detention
– about ten or 11 days in total – in that cage.[151]

Wassim also told Human Rights Watch that he heard two
soldiers from their group scream as if they were being tortured when the two
were taken out of their cell the first day of the detention. When he was
released, Wassim was taken to an office. He told Human Rights Watch:

The first thing I saw were ten bodies, piled on top of each
other, in military uniforms with insignia from the 4th Division. The
blood on the bodies seemed fresh. Most had bullet wounds to their heads and backs.
A guy in the office said that that’s what would happen to us if we
didn’t shoot, adding that we needed to protect our country because Mossad
is coming to take it over.[152]

When they were brought back to the checkpoint and again
asked to shoot at protesters ten days later, Wassim defected.

“Yusuf,” a conscript solder in the 18th
Division, told Human Rights Watch that he was detained and tortured for 15 days
in a detention facility in his brigade because he told the other soldiers that
the protesters were not armed terrorists, but peaceful. He told Human Rights
Watch:

They hit me all the time. They used the tire method, threw
cold water on me, and hit me on the soles of my feet while holding my legs up.
The brigade officers gave the orders, and the regular soldiers carried them
out. After they released me, I defected.[153]

A lieutenant colonel in the 106th Brigade of the
Presidential Guard told Human Rights Watch that he spent six days in prison
because he refused to pass on orders aimed at giving the impression that protesters
were armed for the benefit of a TV crew that was filming.[154]

Repercussions for Families of
Defectors

Most of the defectors expressed concern about the safety of
their relatives, and many said that military or security forces had visited
their close relatives to inquire about their whereabouts. In one case
documented by Human Rights Watch, the defector’s family has faced serious
repercussions.

A defector from the 17th Battalion, 105th
Brigade, Presidential Guard, who defected after his commander ordered him to
open fire on unarmed protesters in Harasta in the Damascus governorate, told
Human Rights Watch that the authorities detained his brother to force him to
return:

A couple of days after I defected, somebody detained my
brother from our house in Tseel. My father, sisters, and sister-in-law were at
home when he was detained. Shortly thereafter, Colonel Fayez Asmander,
my battalion commander, called my father and said that they would release my
brother if I turned myself in. This was in the beginning of September. We still
don’t know where my brother is.[155]

The LCC has documented the detention, torture, and death in
custody of relatives of two defectors.[156]

IV. Syrian Government Response

The Syrian government’s response to credible
accusations of human rights violations has been inadequate and has fostered a
climate of impunity, including for unlawful killings, torture, enforced
disappearance, and arbitrary detention.

Syrian law and a recent presidential decree prohibit legal
action against intelligence agency employees or members of the armed forces
unless authorized by the respective director of these agencies. Legislative
Decree No. 14, of January 15, 1969, which established the General Intelligence
Directorate (Idarat al-Mukhabaraat al-`Ama), one of Syria’s
largest security apparatuses, provides that “no legal action may be taken
against any employee of General Intelligence for crimes committed while
carrying out their designated duties … except by an order issued by the Director.”
To Human Rights Watch’s knowledge, the Director of General Intelligence
has never issued any such order to date. On September 30, 2008, President
al-Assad issued Legislative Decree 69, which extended this immunity to members
of other security forces, by requiring a decree from the General Command of the
Army and Armed Forces to prosecute any member of the internal security forces,
Political Security, and customs police.

Concerns regarding impunity for violations by security
services are longstanding. Human Rights Watch has extensively documented the
lengthy record of abuses by Syrian security and intelligence forces during
President al-Assad’s decade-long tenure, including widespread torture of
detainees, and has found no evidence that the authorities have ever investigated
or prosecuted any member of these forces.

On March 31, 2011, amid growing concerns about civilian
casualties and other human rights violations, the Syrian government established
a judicial committee to “launch an immediate investigation into all
fatalities or injuries sustained by civilians and military personnel and into
all other related offences and to deal with complaints in that
connection.”[157] Aside
from summary statements by President al-Assad that the work of the Committee is
ongoing and that some individuals have been arrested and are being
investigated,little
is known about it.[158]
Questions remain regarding the scope, methodology, and independence of the
Committee. Its efficacy remains in doubt, particularly given the legislative
immunities in place, and overwhelming evidence of continuing widespread abuse
by the security forces.

To quell the protests, the Syrian authorities have proposed
and enacted several decrees and laws. On April 4, President al-Assad enacted a
decree that would grant citizenship to a number of Syria-born stateless Kurds.
On April 21 he lifted the state of emergency in place since 1963 and abolished
the State Security Court, an exceptional court with almost no procedural
guarantees. In May and June President al-Assad also issued two general
amnesties, which benefited a small group of political prisoners. The Syrian
authorities also enacted a number of reforms that they say will open up the
political system in Syria and increase media freedoms. On July 28, the
president issued a decree approving a new political parties law. In August he
issued a decree for a General Elections Law and approved a new media law which
purports to uphold freedom of expression, although the law still requires the
media to “respect this freedom of expression” by “practicing
it with awareness and responsibility.”

Further, in October he issued a decree establishing a
national commission tasked with preparing a draft constitution within four
months which will reportedly then be voted on by Syrians via a public
referendum.

These reforms, however, continue to be undermined by the
ongoing repression and violence accompanying security operations and do not
touch on concerns regarding impunity for violations by security services.

V. International Response

While many states have condemned Syria’s use of
violence and some have followed those words with actions aimed at pushing the Syrian
government to change course, the international community has been slow to take
collective action. Most notably, in October, 2011, Russia and China vetoed a
European-sponsored UN Security Council resolution condemning the violence.[159]

On November 12, however, the League of Arab States voted to
suspend Syria’s membership in the league after Syria failed to honor a
November 2 agreement to withdraw its armed forces from cities and towns,
release all those detained during the uprising, and allow unhindered access to
the country for journalists. Subsequent efforts by the league to deploy
monitors to Syria have failed, as of this writing, because the Syrian
authorities posed restrictive conditions unacceptable to the league. The league
officially suspended Syria on November 16, and on November 27, the league adopted
unprecedented sanctions against Syria. The sanctions include cutting off
transactions with the Syrian central bank, halting funding by Arab governments
for projects in Syria, a ban on senior Syrian officials travelling to other
Arab countries, and a freeze on assets related to President Bashar al-Assad's
government.[160]

More concerted action emerged most recently also from the
General Assembly of the United Nations. On November 23, the assembly’s
human rights committee adopted a resolution condemning Syria for its use of
violence against protesters. The resolution was adopted with 122 votes in
favor, 13 against and 41 abstentions. Notably, Russia and China, which vetoed
the Security Council resolution in October, abstained.[161]

On December 2, the UN Human Rights Council held a special
session on Syria following the report of the independent international
Commission of Inquiry, a body appointed by the council, which concluded that
Syrian security and military forces "committed crimes against
humanity" against civilians.[162]

The Human Rights Council, in a 37-4 vote, adopted a
resolution which strongly condemned “the continued widespread, systematic
and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian
authorities, such as arbitrary executions, excessive use of force and the
killing and persecution of protesters, human rights defenders and journalists,
arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment,
including against children." The resolution demanded an immediate end to
the violence, the release of all political prisoners, and the suspension of
members of the security forces suspected of abuses. Russia and China were among
just four countries to vote against the resolution.[163]

During the special session, both the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights and all the UN Special Procedures mandate-holders, in a joint
statement, called on the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to
the ICC.[164]

VI. Recommendations

To the UN Security Council

Demand that Syria end the widespread human rights abuses
committed by government forces, including the use of excessive and lethal force
against demonstrators, arbitrary arrests and torture;

Refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court;

Adopt targeted sanctions on officials credibly implicated in the
ongoing grave, widespread, and systematic violations of international human
rights law in Syria since mid-March 2011;

Require states to suspend all military sales and assistance, including
technical training and services, to the Syrian government given the real risk
that the weapons and technology will be used in the commission of serious human
rights violations;

Demand that Syria cooperate fully with the UN Human Rights
Council Commission of Inquiry and with any monitoring mission that may be
established by the Arab League, including by providing both with immediate and
unfettered access;

Invite the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to brief the
Council periodically on the human rights situation in Syria;

Consider without delay the conclusions and recommendations of the
report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria; and

To All Countries

Acting individually or jointly through regional mechanisms where appropriate,
adopt targeted sanctions against Syrian officials credibly implicated in the
ongoing grave, widespread, and systematic violations of international human
rights law in Syria since mid-March 2011;

Under the principle of universal jurisdiction and in accordance
with national laws, investigate and prosecute members of the Syrian senior
military and civilian leadership suspected of committing grave crimes as part
of their involvement in the suppression of protests.

To the UN General Assembly

Should the Security Council be deadlocked, adopt an additional
resolution to condemn the violence, demand that Syria cooperate with the UN
Commission of Inquiry as well as the Arab League monitoring mission, and urge
the Security Council to take action.

To the UN Human Rights Council
and its Members

Support continued monitoring and reporting on the human rights
situation in Syria by the HRC Commission of Inquiry, the newly established
special rapporteur on Syria, relevant thematic special procedures, and the High
Commissioner for Human Rights and follow up on their recommendations

Remain seized of the situation in Syria as long as widespread
human rights abuses continue.

To the Arab League

Acting individually or jointly, maintain and strengthen targeted
sanctions against Syrian officials credibly implicated in the ongoing grave,
widespread, and systematic violations of international human rights law in
Syria since mid-March 2011;

Continue to press for a monitoring mission to Syria on terms that
will allow the monitors to carry out their mission, including insisting that Syrian authorities grant the monitors
unhindered access, allow them to operate independently and guarantee the safety
of witnesses and staff members;

Ensure that any monitoring mission has
strong terms of reference, proper staffing and adequate resources and seek
technical support from the UN Secretary General and the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights;

Request regular reports from any
monitoring mission to Syria and make those reports public;

Call for the Security Council to adopt
a resolution supporting Arab League efforts on Syria.

To Turkey

Continue to voice support strong Security Council action on Syria
(as described in the recommendations above);

Adopt targeted sanctions on officials credibly implicated in the
ongoing grave, widespread, and systematic violations of international human
rights law in Syria since mid-March 2011.

To India, Brazil, and South
Africa

Support strong Security Council action on Syria (as described in
the recommendations above);

Support the Arab League’s efforts to deploy monitors to
Syria and urge the Syrian authorities to unconditionally facilitate such a
monitoring mission.

To Russia and China

Support strong Security Council action on Syria (as described in
the recommendations above);

Support the Arab League’s efforts to deploy monitors to
Syria and urge the Syrian authorities to unconditionally facilitate such a
monitoring mission.

Suspend all military sales and assistance to the Syrian government
given the real risk that weapons and technology will be used in the commission
of serious human rights violations;

In bilateral meetings, condemn in the strongest terms the Syrian
authorities’ systematic violations of human rights

To the Syrian Government

Immediately halt the use of
excessive and lethal force against demonstrators and other persons by security
forces; Immediately halt the practice of enforced disappearance,
arbitrary arrest and detention, and the use of torture, including of family members
of defected officers;

Immediately issue orders forbidding the looting and destruction
of property by security forces;

Conduct prompt, thorough, and objective investigations into
allegations of unlawful killing, enforced disappearance, arbitrary arrest and
detention, torture, ill-treatment, looting, and destruction of property by
security forces and prosecute those responsible, regardless of rank, before courts that meet international fair trial
standards. Criminal investigations should trace orders to commit such
acts to the highest level implicated. Military commanders and intelligence
officials should also be investigated for violations committed by units under
their command in accordance with the command responsibility doctrine;

Suspend members of the security forces against whom there are
credible allegations of human rights abuse pending investigations;

Release unconditionally all detainees against whom there is no
credible evidence of genuine acts of criminal violence. These include those
held merely for participating in peaceful protests, for criticizing Syrian
authorities, or carrying out legitimate human rights activities;

Annul Legislative Decree No. 14, of January 15, 1969, and
Legislative Decree 69, which provide immunity to members of the security
forces, by requiring a decree from the General Command of the Army and Armed
Forces to prosecute any member of the internal security forces, Political
Security, and customs police;

Ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,the
Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the International Convention for the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and amend domestic law in
compliance with these treaties;

Provide international monitors including the International
Committee of the Red Cross access to all regular and ad hoc detention
facilities so they can independently monitor prison conditions, and help
connect missing persons with their families;

Provide access to and cooperate fully with the UN Human Rights
Council Commission of Inquiry and other human rights monitoring bodies
including the special rapporteur on the question of torture and other forms of
cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment, the special rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and the Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention;

Grant unhindered access to Syria to Arab League monitors,
international and regional media, and independent observers, to freely monitor
and report on developments and human rights abuses in the country.

Cooperate fully with the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights, including by immediately agreeing to the establishment of an
OHCHR presence in the country and allowing it unhindered access to the country
without delay;

Cooperate fully with the special rapporteur on Syria by allowing
the mandate holder unhindered access to the country, responding promptly to
communications, and implementing recommendations ;

Refrain from reprisals against anyone that has cooperated with
international investigations into human rights abuses or other independent
bodies documenting or reporting on human rights violations;

Acknowledgments

This report was researched and written by Anna Neistat,
associate director for Program and Emergencies, and Ole Solvang, researcher in
the Emergencies Division.

We are deeply grateful to the individuals who shared their
stories, despite concern that they might face repercussions from the
authorities. Their commitment to get their stories out despite the risks and
challenges is an inspiration.

The information below has been compiled on the basis of
defectors’ statements. To the extent possible, the information has been
verified through third parties and public sources. Given limitations on access
to Syria and official government sources, the information below might be
expanded and clarified based on further research. Information provided on
individuals below identifies their role within the structure of the Syrian
Armed Forces or Intelligence Agencies. Not all individuals listed below also
appear in the body of the report. References to specific allegations refer to
the units involved.

In theory, the National Security Bureau oversees the four
intelligence agencies. In practice, however, the agencies operate with a high
degree of autonomy, answerable mainly to President Bashar al-Assad.

Given the secretive nature of the Syrian intelligence
agencies, it is very difficult to verify information about their structure and
commanders. The information below has been included only when confirmed by two
or more defectors. Nevertheless, the exact structure of the agencies and the
identity of their commanders might be clarified as more information comes to
light.

The four main intelligence agencies have regional branches
in the governorates and main cities, in addition to central branches.

All of the main intelligence agencies have been implicated in
the killing of unarmed protesters and the arbitrary arrest and torture of
detainees.

Head
of Suwayda Regional Branch; assumed position after Brig. Gen. Ramadan

Air Force Intelligence Directorate (Idarat
al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya)

Central Branches:

Investigative Branch

Special Operations Branch

Key Officials:

Name

Comments

Maj.
Gen. Jamil Hassan

Director

Maj.
Gen. Abdulsalam Fajer Mahmoud

Head
of Investigative Branch

Maj.
Gen. Ghassan Ismail

Head
of Special Operations Branch

Col.
Suheil Hassan

Head
of Operations Branch

Col.
Qusay Mihoub

Officer
from Damascus; sent to Daraa at the beginning of protests to oversee
operations there.

General Security Directorate (Idarat al-Amn
al-Amm)

(Often referred to by its old name, “State
Security”)

Central branches:

Investigative Branch (285)

Information Security Branch (255)

Internal Branch (251)

External Branch (300)

Key Officials:

Name

Comments

Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk (Mamluk)

Director

Maj.
Gen. Ghassan Khalil

Head
of Information Security Branch (255)

Col.
Hafez Makhlouf

Head
of Internal Branch (251)

Brig.
Gen. Ahmed Dibe

Head
of Daraa Regional Branch

Political Security Directorate (Idarat al-Amn
al-Siyasi)

Central branches:

Investigative Branch (“al-Feiha”)

Key Officials:

Name

Comments

Mohamed
Dib Zeitoun

Director

Brig. Gen. Makhmoud al-Khattib

Head of Investigative Branch

Brig. Gen. Mohamed Heikmat Ibrahim

Head
of Operations Branch

Atif
Najib

Head
of Daraa Regional Branch when protests broke out in March; later removed

Brig. Gen. Nasser Al-Ali

Replaced
Atif Najib as Head of Daraa Regional Branch

Appendix 2: Military Terminology

Units of the Armed Forces

English-language
equivalent

Appr.
number of troops

Arabic
transcription

Arabic

Corps

50,000

Failaq

فيلق

Division

15,000

Firqa

فرقة

Brigade

5,000-7,000

Liwa

لواء

Regiment

3,000-4,000

Fawj

فوج

Battalion

50-500

Katibeh

الكتيبة

Company

10-50

Seriyeh

السرية

Platoon

10-50

Faseileh

فصيلة

Squad

9-10

Jamaha

جماعة

Military Ranks:

English-language
equivalent

Arabic
transcription

Arabic

Field
Marshal

Mosheer

مشير

General

Fareeq
Awal

فريق
اول

Lieutenant
General

Fareeq

فريق

1st
Imad

Imad
Awal

عماد
أول

Imad

Imad

عماد

Major
General

Liwa

لواء

Brigadier
General

Amid

عميد

Colonel

Aqeed

عقيد

Lieutenant
Colonel

Moqaddam

مقدم

Major

Ra’ed

رائد

Captain

Naqeeb

نقيب

1st
Lieutenant

Molazim
Awal

ملازم
أول

Lieutenant

Molazim

ملازم

Sergeant

Raqeeb

رقيب

Corporal

Areef

عريف

[1] For a
more detailed overview of the launch of the protest movement and the
government’s reaction, see Human Rights Watch, “We’ve
Never Seen Such Horror”: Crimes against Humanity by Syrian
Security Forces, June 1, 2011,
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/06/01/we-ve-never-seen-such-horror-0, Section
I.

[3] Syrian
opposition groups maintain and regularly update a list of individuals killed in
Syria on the Violations Documentation Center (VDC) website
http://www.vdc-sy.org/. The Syrian authorities have not published a list of
people killed to date. In its statistics, the Violations
Documentation Center uses the term
“civilians” to describe protesters and bystanders as opposed to
defectors and members of the security forces.

[5] Hala
Jaber, “Strike Syria and the world will shake; Syria's president tells
The Sunday Times that violence is the fault of armed gangs and the Arab League
is a stooge of the West,” The Sunday Times, November 20, 2011,
http://www.dp-news.com/en/detail.aspx?articleid=103707 (accessed November 27,
2011).

[8]A recent report by the International Crisis Group commented that
the “Free Syrian Army itself is more of a wild card than a known
entity.” International Crisis Group, “Uncharted Waters: Thinking
Through Syria's Dynamics,” Middle East Briefing No. 31, November 24,
2011, http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/Iraq%20Syria%20Lebanon/Syria/B031%20Uncharted%20Waters%20-%20Thinking%20Through%20Syrias%20Dynamics.pdf
(accessed November 24, 2011). The highest profile attack attributed to the Free
Syrian Army was a November 16 attack on an Air Force Intelligence building in
Harasta. The details of the attack remain murky. One Western diplomat residing
in Damascus told Human Rights Watch that reports of a large-scale attack were
overblown. Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld), Beirut, November 24,
2011.

[10] For
media accounts, see, for example, Anthony Shadid, “Sectarian Strife in
City Bodes Ill for All of Syria,” The New York Times, November 19,
2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/world/middleeast/in-homs-syria-sectarian-battles-stir-fears-of-civil-war.html
(accessed November 25, 2011); Nir Rosen, “A Tale of Two Villages,”
October 24, 2011,
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/10/2011102365913224161.html
(accessed November 25, 2011); “Homs, a Syrian City Ripped Apart by
Sectarian Killing,” Agence France-Presse in Al Arabiya News,
November 26, 2011, http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/11/26/179278.html
(accessed December 5, 2011).

[11] Nada
Bakri, “U.N. Says Action Needed to Prevent Civil War in Syria,” The
New York Times, December 2, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/world/middleeast/un-says-action-needed-to-prevent-civil-war-in-syria.html
(accessed December 5, 2011).

[14] The International
Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (Doc.A/61/488.
C.N.737.2008.TREATIES-12 of October 2, 2008) defines an enforced disappearance
as: “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of
liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with
the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal
to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or
whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the
protection of the law” (Article 2). Article 1 of the Convention provides:
“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a
threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency,
may be invoked as a justification for enforced disappearance.” International
Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, Doc.
A/61/488, December 20, 2006, entered into force December 23, 2010. For the
purposes of a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court (A/CONF. 183/9), Article 7 (2) ()(i) defines
enforced disappearance as " the arrest, detention or abduction of persons
by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a
political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation
of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons,
with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a
prolonged period of time.” Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court (Rome Statute), A/CONF.183/9, July 17, 1998, entered into force July 1,
2002, art. 7(2)(i).

[17] See
“Syria’s Intelligence Services: A Primer,” Middle East
Intelligence Bulletin, July 1, 2000,
http://www.intelpage.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=588 (accessed October 1, 2009);
and Middle East Watch (now Human Rights Watch/MENA), Syria Unmasked: The
Suppression of Human Rights by the Asad Regime (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1991), pp. 48-51. The Air Force Intelligence Directorate is only
nominally tied to the air force. Its role as a powerful and feared intelligence
agency in Syria comes from the fact that the late President Hafez al-Assad was
once the air force commander, and later turned the air force intelligence
service into his personal action bureau.

[18]
Nominally, the General Intelligence Directorate and Political Security
Directorate are “civilian” agencies and under the jurisdiction of
the Ministry of Interior, but in practice they are both autonomous entities.
Military Intelligence and Air Force Intelligence nominally report to the Ministry
of Defense, but again, in practice, are autonomous entities. See
“Syria’s Intelligence Services: A Primer,” Middle East
Intelligence Bulletin, http://www.intelpage.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=588;
Ahed Al Hendi, “The Structure of Syria’s Repression,” Foreign
Affairs, May 3, 2011, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67823/ahed-al-hendi/the-structure-of-syrias-repression?page=show
(noting that “However structured they are in theory, the security
agencies are dominated by the Assad family in practice”); Shmuel Bar,
“Bashar’s Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview,”
2006, http://www.herzliyaconference.org/_Uploads/2590Bashars.pdf (accessed
December 5, 2011)(noting that the heads of the various security organs
“answer to the president directly in all matters”); Human Rights
Watch, Syria Unmasked, p. 40.

[19]
Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, “Syria: Compulsory military
service, including age limit for performing service; penalties for evasion;
occasions where proof of military service status is required; whether the
government can recall individuals who have already completed their compulsory
military service,” SYR102395.E, March 8, 2007, SYR102395.E, available at:
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/47d6547928.html (accessed 26 November 26,
2011).

[31] See
Local Coordination Committees, “Human Rights Violations Committed by the
Syrian Regime, 15 March – 15 October,” November 7, 2011 (listing
161 detainees who died in custody), “Human Rights Violations Committed by
the Syrian Regime, 16 October – 31 October,” undated, (listing 19
detainees who died in detention), and “The Syrian Regime’s
Violations File Covering the Period November 1-15, 2011,” undated
(listing 17 detainees who died in custody), http://www.lccsyria.org (accessed
December 5, 2011).

[32] See
for example, Human Rights Watch, “We’ve Never Seen Such Horror”;
Human Rights Watch, “We Live as in War”

[33] Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.183/9, July 17, 1998, entered
into force July 1, 2002. Rome Statute. Syria has signed, although not
ratified, the Rome Statute and so is obliged to refrain from acts that would
‘defeat the object and purpose of [the] treaty’. See Article 18 of
the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969, United Nations, Treaty
Series, vol. 1155, p. 331, acceded to by Syria in 1970. Syria signed
the Rome Statute on November 29, 2000.

[38] See Prosecutor
v. Blaskic, ICTY, Case No. IT-95-14-T, Judgment (Trial Chamber), March 3,
2000, para. 257. Blaskic (paras. 258-259) listed factors from
which could be inferred knowledge of the context: (a) the historical and
political circumstances in which the acts of violence occurred; (b) the
functions of the accused when the crimes were committed; (c) his
responsibilities within the political or military hierarchy; (d) the direct and
indirect relationship between the political and military hierarchy; (e) the
scope and gravity of the acts perpetrated; and (f) the nature of the crimes
committed and the degree to which they are common knowledge.

[48] Universal
jurisdiction is a legal principle under international law that gives the
ability to the domestic judicial system of a state to investigate and prosecute
a limited number of specific crimes, even if they were not committed on its
territory, by one of its nationals or against one of its nationals (i.e. crimes
that are beyond the traditional bases of jurisdiction, such as territoriality,
active and passive personality.) Universal jurisdiction is justified because
the crimes to which it applies are so grave that they are of concern to the
international community as a whole, and all states share the responsibility to
bring those who commit them to justice. There is no international convention
that obliges states to exercise universal jurisdiction for crimes against
humanity (contrary to war crimes and torture, for example.) However, it is
generally agreed upon that international customary law allows states to
exercise universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity. A number of states
have provided their courts with universal jurisdiction for crimes against
humanity, notably when implementing the Statute of the International Criminal
Court into their national legislation. States which have such provisions should
seek to exercise universal jurisdiction against those responsible for the grave
crimes committed against the civilian population in Syria, notably in the event
they would travel to their territory.

[114] The
witness explained that the release of the detainees was one of the demands put
forward by the father of Hamza al-Khateeb, a 13-year-old boy who died from
torture in the detention facility after Air Force intelligence arrested him on
April 29, 2011, and whose death caused an outcry in Syria and
internationally.

[148] A
recently released detainee told Human Rights Watch that while he was
transferred from one detention facility to another around May 10, he talked to
several detained defectors who said that they were being transferred to the
Tadmor prison. Human Rights Watch interview, November 21, 2011. Human Rights
Watch has documented extensive human rights abuse, torture, and summary executions
in Tadmor prison. The authorities transferred hundreds of political prisoners
from the Tadmor prison in 2001, but the prison reportedly continued to function
as a military prison. For background information, see Human Rights Watch, A
Wasted Decade: Human Rights in Syria during Bashar al-Asad’s First Ten
Years in Power, July 16, 2010, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2010/07/16/wasted-decade.

[162] The Special
Session of the Human Rights Council on the "Situation of human Rights in
the Syrian Arab Republic" that took place on December 2, 2011, can be
viewed at http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/12/vote-on-resolution-18th-special-session-human-rights-council-2.html
(accessed December 5, 2011). The adopted resolution is available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/specialsession/18/A-HRC-RES-S-18-1_en.pdf
(accessed December 5, 2011).

[164] UN
Human Rights Council, “Statement delivered on behalf of all Special
Procedures mandate-holders of the United Nations Human Rights Council at the
Eighteenth Special Session of the Human Rights Council on the situation of
human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” December 2, 2011, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/specialsession/SpecialProcedures_MsFaridaShaheed.pdf
(accessed December 7, 2011).

[165]Imad
is a rank in the Syrian armed forces between major general and lieutenant
general.